The Happiness Contract
by udderpd
Summary: Before that fateful Halloween Harry's mother called on the Gods to make him happy; Staring - Harry Hermione Daphne Luna Susan Hannah Tracey and the Patil twins. They soon realise that it takes equallity and stability to be Happy
1. Chapter 1

**Disclaimer:** I am not JKR. I tried a wig and makeup but everyone just laughed at me. So, there you have it, J. K. Rowling rules, well she should she owns nearly everything.

**HEALTH WARNING:** I write mainly for my own enjoyment and I have every intention of this becoming extremely sweet in places; insulin may become necessary.

**Authors Note:** As per my usual displeasure since the publication of books six and seven, little or no regard has been paid to recent cannon. As such Amelia Bones and Dumbledore are, at this moment, both alive and Cornelius Fudge is still Minister of Magic.

**The Happiness Contract **

**by UdderPD**

**Day 01**

_**It is Friday July the thirtieth it is 08.45 on the day before Harry Potter's seventeenth birthday. **_

"Yes?" grunted Vernon Dursley, he was just about to go to work.

He had answered the front door to be confronted by a group of nine women who appeared to range in age from sixteen to forty; and from the way that most of them were dressed they had to be freaks.

The apparent leader of the visitors said, "We have come to remove Lord Harry James Merlin Gryffindor Hufflepuff Potter from this hovel; might we enter?"

The statement seemed to pass by Vernon completely, so reverting to character he turned puce and bellowed, "I will not have any more freaks in my house. Bog o . . ."

"The Lady Hermione told us that we would probably have this reaction from you; you are your own worst enemy." Vernon had been silenced and he was flailing around with his feet three inches off the floor as the cohort of witches walked into the front room with Vernon floating in front of them. "Where are the rest of your family?"

His vocal chords had been released so he called for Petunia and Dudley, the latter proved his charming character by saying, "Hi, I'm Big D. Do I get to pick which one of you I have first?"

As Dudley reached the end of his opening words of eloquent wisdom, he was petrified and levitated across the room and was propped up in a corner, fully aware but completely unable to move.

Looking livid she turned back to the two adults and said, "I am 'the Lady' and the fate of the Dursley family has just taken a nose dive. Where is the Lord Potter?" She simply gave up with them and petrified the pair of adult Dursleys then propped them in the corner with their obnoxious son.

The Dursleys were looking at her like an incoherent pair of goldfish out of water, so she continued, "Lady Hermione and Lady Daphne, will you please go and find the Lord Potter and advise him to prepare to permanently depart this . . . this hovel."

The pair gave decorous curtsey's to the Lady and climbed up the stairs, seconds later there was an incoherent howl of rage from Daphne, all of the other witches took out their wands as the Lady hurriedly made her way up the stairs.

**-x-**

As the Lady hastened up the stairs the door bell rang.

Luna opened the door and a rather surprised Percy Weasley said, "Luna!"

"What are you?" Luna asked dreamily.

Percy looked confused and answered, "I'm from the Ministry."

"That is a very good place for you to try to get away from." Percy thought that, for Luna, she was sounding almost normal.

"I'm not trying to get away from the Ministry, I work there." Percy was however was about to discover that he was still losing.

"Are you sure that you are not an orange spotted Weaslewobbler that has drunk too much carrot juice?" Percy thought _'well that didn't last long,'_ however Luna was enjoying herself immensely, she knew that her friends were well aware that she was simply trying to wind Percy up and she was well on her way to total victory.

Having struggled to regain his pomposity Percy said, "I have come from the Underage Use of Magic Office to confiscate the wand of one Harry James Potter; for the use of underage magic."

The most bumptious of the Weasleys suddenly realised that there were more wands than he could quickly count pointing at him as a woman he did not recognise, who was coming down the stairs said, "Bring the fool in, it appears that the sun is addling its brain." She turned to Luna and added, "That was very well done Lady Luna."

The young blond gave a very contented smile, she knew that she was with friends.

Percy was spluttering as his feet left the ground and he floated into the middle of the Dursleys lounge which had, at some time during the proceedings, just seemed to grow to accommodate all of the activity.

"Who are you? I will see you in Azkaban for this." Percy blustered.

"I am the Lady, are they all like you in the Ministry?"

Susan Bones interjected, "Truly Lady, Percy is actually one of the better ones."

The Lady continued, "Good gracious, things are worse than we thought; anyway foolish Weaslewobbler . . ."

Percy was still irate and rudely interrupted loudly, "Why do you keep calling me that foolish name; my name is Percy Weasley?"

Smirking, the Lady answered, "You sir have allowed your petty ambition to over shadow your commitment to your family; also your foolish pride and arrogance is preventing you from making amends and reconciling with your family. Stop adapting your moral stance to fit with those of others who you believe will help your advancement in the government of your world . . . just be your own man. The Lady Luna Ravenclaw Lovegood saw this in you and gave you that name to make you think about what you are doing to yourself and your family; I use it simply to remind you of what you have been doing to yourself.

"Anyway, back to what I was saying before you so rudely interrupted me. Lord Harry James Merlin Gryffindor Hufflepuff Potter is the head of four 'Most Noble and Most Ancient' houses. Ergo the normal rules for underage magic do not apply to him since he is over the age of fourteen and although it is none of your business, I am the one who performed the magic you were worried about when you arrived.

"So, you go back . . . Oh my . . ."

**-x-**

Daphne and Hermione had easily recognised Harry's room, it was at the end of the upstairs hall and the door had six padlocks on the outside; it was the sight of these that had so enraged Daphne.

Seconds later the Lady arrived and she immediately totally banished the door along with the padlocks; looking at Harry it was obvious that he had been severely beaten and it must have been by his uncle. The Dursleys were in even more serious trouble and they had probably known it since the Lady had first asked for Lord Potter.

The Lady rotated her wand above her head, pointing straight up whilst she was whispering quietly; a portal appeared before her through which stepped a very serene looking woman.

"Greetings my Lady." The new visitor said.

"It is good of you to come so quickly Hygiea, we have need of your expertise for Lord Potter."

"I will do all I can for him." Hygeia replied.

"If you can do _everything_ you can we will be most grateful. Now I must go back down stairs, we seem to have acquired an idiot from the Ministry."

As the Lady left the newest arrival turned to the two witches and introduced herself, "As you have probably gathered I am Hygeia, if you don't know your Greek History I'm the Olympian goddess of healing, so let us see what we need to do for our young friend."

First she transfigured the bed with Harry still on it into one that was full size and far more comfortable and then the goddess spent about ten minutes examining Harry. When she stood up she looked livid; she pointed her staff straight up silently casting six spells and then she started talking as she was working on Harry.

"Harry has had his magical core bound twice; it was done by Snape and Dumbledore in conjunction with and the blessing of Cornelius Fudge; Dumbledore's feeble memory charms are no hindrance to Olympians so I have removed them. I have sent all three felons directly to Zeus with a complete description of what they have done; he will arrange their punishment and I seriously doubt that you will ever hear of any of the three again.

"Acting as Harry's hand I have sent the abomination that was Tom Riddle now calling itself Voldemort directly to Hades along with all of its soul pieces; his penance for creating these abominations will take aeons. Being a Goddess I am permitted to act as such in matters of prophecy; this is most especially true when one of the concerned parties is trying to cheat the death which is part of the prophecy, by splitting his soul. Do not worry Daphne, Hermione will explain what I am talking about later, she is well aware of what Voldemort has done in a rather futile attempt to keep himself alive.

"The last two spells were messages to Amelia Bones, the head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement; the first explains 'the what' and 'the why' of my actions against Fudge, Snape and Dumbledore; the other tells her what Harry has done to Voldemort. There will be a lot of ramification connected to Voldemort's demise because all of his minions, marked or not, will accompany him on his journey; also all of their money, goods and chattels will pass to Harry as spoils of war."

She had stopped because although Daphne was smiling Hermione's smile lit up the room and she was bouncing with happiness.

"Right," the healer continued, shaking her head with a smile "I have almost finished, so I am going to wake him up, he will be a little disorientated and very hungry; oh and I will conjure him a temporary robe, it will only last for a few days, so make sure to get him some other clothes, all of the clothing he has here is rubbish and I am going to destroy it.

"Why is that? He has always had plenty of money . . ."

Harry groaned, "It was the Egotistical Opinionated Mad Meddling Molly and Bumblemore the flatulent . . . how long have I been here? I'm starving."

"Drink this." Hygiea passed him a goblet.

"Yuck! More potions." He had said that before he tasted the drink, he did however drink it without further complaint; and then he added, "That was gorgeous, may I have some more please?"

"That was the nectar of the gods, so first you must eat this ambrosia and then you can have some more of the nectar. After that you need a shower and to get dressed." The goddess was smiling at him; he was going to be alright.

As he was eating, Daphne whispered to Hermione, "Can I actually see him growing, Merlin he's gorgeous and he doesn't seem to need his glasses."

Hermione whispered back, "I can see what you mean and it's going to take the eight of us to fight all of the other girls off of him."

"What are you two whispering about . . . what are you doing here anyway?" Harry was beginning to properly reconnect with the world.

His very best friend gave him a brilliant smile and answered, "We were whispering about you apparently not requiring your glasses anymore and we are here to take you away from all of this elegant luxury, however as usual it seems to have turned out to be something of a rescue mission. We will tell you all about it when you have finished eating, showered and dressed your lazy self; also when we are somewhere more conducive to relaxation."

"Ok Hermione I kind of understand you being here, however I have another two beautiful young ladies in what appears to be my bedroom; I know that one of you is Daphne Greengrass and I must admit that finding her here is rather odd and are you a healer? If you are, you are far and away the best healer I have ever even heard about?"

He had directed the last part of his question towards the unknown, to him, woman; who replied, "Well thank you Harry, I am Hygiea, the Olympian goddess of health and healing; so really it is not very surprising that I am the best healer you have ever encountered.

"Now as Hermione so delicately put it move your lazy self into the shower so that we can all leave this dump." She was however smiling as she said this.

It took Harry about five minutes, aided by the two girls, to first stand up and then to work his way into the shower; when he returned in his new robe he checked that he had everything from his room in his trunk; Hermione shrank the trunk and put it into her pocket.

After Hygiea had returned Harry's bed to original condition the four of them went down to the living room.

**-x-**

. . . "Oh my . . . Mr Weasley, precisely who sent you here?" the Lady was suddenly very, very serious.

Reluctantly Percy admitted, "It was the Minister of Magic Cornelius Fudge; he has his own magic detection monitors on this house."

"The ex Minister of Magic would be a more accurate title for him." She said to everyone's surprise and then continued, "Lord Potter has been severely beaten by these freakish animals, so I called my friend Hygiea, _(Percy's eyes lit up in sudden recognition.)_ She made a thorough examination of him and found that his magical core had been bound . . . twice. _(All of the magic users were outraged.)_ It was done by Dumbledore and Snape at the instigation of Fudge; she has also sent a message to Amelia Bone the Director of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement explaining what she has done to them also why she has done it.

"Ex minister Fudge has always blustered his way through on the assumption that he was free from prosecution by the Wizengamot; this might well be true . . . however . . . he and his cohorts are currently visiting Zeus who will decide their punishment. He is not normally a very charitable individual so I doubt that any of you will hear of them again . . . in this life. Although their punishment might well become the stuff of legend, none of us take kindly to those who systematically abuse children." at this the Dursleys cringed.

"Hygiea had to send Lady Susan's aunt a second missive regarding Harry totally disposing of his major annoyance who called himself Voldemort. _(They were all gobsmacked.)_ This will cause something of a problem because all of Voldemort's minions will have been sent to Hades along with him. In a nutshell this means that all marked 'death eaters' and all those who knowingly, or suspected that they were working for Voldemort's agenda are having a rather warm holiday with my friend Hades; it is a very long time since he has allowed anyone to return once he has permitted them entrance to his domain."

There was a noise from the hall and the four from upstairs came into the front room.

Harry looked around and said, "What on earth are you lot doing here?" He did not know the Lady however, thanks to his running the Defence Association again, during the past year, he had become reasonably good friends with all of the girls in the room.

"I told you upstairs Harry, 'we are here to take you away from all of this pampering,' to rescue you from the animals." Hermione was not happy with what he had had to suffer what with Dumbledore and the Dursleys.

"Mr Weaslewobbler," the Lady said, "return to the Ministry, you will be one of the few who will know what has caused the chaos there; and don't forget what I have told you about your family."

For a change Percy was looking contrite as he promised to remember what had been said to him as he said goodbye to everyone and left.

"Now we must deal with the Dursleys." The Lady thought for a moment and then she created another portal and called, "Eris please come and Rhamnous might we have a moment of your time as well, please?"

Hermione's eyes went wide, "She's not messing about, is she; chaos and retribution." She said quietly.

It was probably quite justified but at this point the adult Dursleys had heard the Lady talk of Zeus and Hermione talking of chaos and retribution, justifiably they looked terrified; Dudley was too stupid to realise what was about to happen to the three of them.

The two goddesses looked into the Lady's eyes and Rhamnous said, "Do not worry . . . any of you, we will take care of them."

"Very good care." Eris added, with an innocent smile.

Without thinking Tracey blurted, "Oh shit!" and she immediately clamped her hand over her mouth.

Eris giggled, "That just about sums it up nicely."

"Ok everybody," the Lady said, "take hold of this portkey." She held out a gold coloured cord.

All of the girls took hold, however Harry didn't instead he asked, "Where will it take us?"

Most of the girls, especially Hermione, looked annoyed with themselves for not having done something similar.

The Lady smiled at him and said, "Well done Lord Harry; you need to go to Gringotts to hear your parents and your godfather's 'wills'.

"You need to review your financial situation and collect some money for a large scale clothes shopping trip, for yourself and these lovely ladies; also you need to evaluate your properties to pick one to live in . . . at least temporarily . . ."

"Ok ok I get the picture," as he smiled and took hold of the portkey.

**-x-**

Two goddesses, eight, very attractive, girls and Harry Potter arriving in Diagon Alley, even if they were near to the steps of Gringotts, was bound to cause something of a stir. Although it had been less than an hour since they had informed the ministry that Harry had done for the Dark Lord it seemed that everybody knew about it . . . and a rabid hoard of fan girls wanted to congratulate him . . . very personally.

The party fled into the bank.

Once inside the bank it was obvious that the goblins knew who they all were . . . including the goddesses.

Following a goblin the party were led directly to a, very plush, medium sized conference room where they were greeted by Goldfist the head of the bank and also the leader of the goblin nation; he asked the girls to introduce themselves:

"Hermione Jane Granger, muggleborn witch."

"Luna Selene Lovegood, pureblood wit . . ."

She was interrupted by Goldfist, "Has Dumbledore not informed you of your birthright, has he not told you that you are the primary heir to the Most Noble and Most Ancient house of Ravenclaw, your correct title Lady Luna Selene Ravenclaw Lovegood."

Luna slumped onto a chair looking gobsmacked and she was being comforted by Harry and Hermione.

Their naming continued; "Lady Susan Amelia Bones, scion of the Noble House of Bones."

"Padma Shakti Patil, pureblood witch."

"Parvati Shakti Patil, pureblood witch."

"Tracey Davis, half blood witch."

"Lady Daphne Ophelia Greengrass, scion of the Noble and Ancient House of Greengrass."

"Hannah Abbott, half blood witch."

The goblin leader then asked, "And you sir, who do you think you are?"

Looking confused, Harry stood and replied, "Harry James Potter, half blood wizard." The goblin just looked at him whilst shaking his head so Harry sat back down.

"I see." said Goldfist, he did not appear to be very happy, "What can you tell me, my Lady?"

The Lady answered, "Both Dumbledore and Fudge have been sent to Zeus for judgement; Voldemort and all of his minions have been sent directly to Hades by the hand of Lord Potter; I do not believe that any of them will trouble this world again."

This was news to Harry who looked at Hermione, for her part she gave him a huge smile whilst nodding and he smiled back.

Goldfist looked at her, "All of his minions?"

She produced an extremely long list out of thin air and passed it to him whilst saying, "This list is all of his marked death eaters also his unmarked supporters and his tacit supporters, along with their offences."

The party were now all seated and the goblin leader said, "This obviously changes a lot of things.

"Lord Potter, your full name is 'Lord Harry James Merlin Gryffindor Hufflepuff Slytherin Potter, you acquired the Slytherin appellation by conquest; let me confirm something."

He looked at one of the documents on his desk and continued, "You also hold the title of Lord Black, this name should be inserted between the Slytherin and Potter in your full title; now we have established who you all are we can proceed.

"I assume that you originally came here for a provisional assessment of the estate of Lord Potter?"

When the party agreed that that was indeed what they were there for he continued, "Currently we are holding at least three 'wills' which require probate followed by execution; this will entail the arrangement of a formal reading of the 'wills'. We have been trying to undertake this matter for many years; however, we have been constantly stalled by one A.P.W.B. Dumbledore who we have just been told has been removed from the playing field.

"As to other matters; at this time, even with the assistance of ten women you will not be able to make any significant impression on your money, so I will give each of you one of these cards which can be used in both wizarding and muggle worlds."

Hermione politely interrupted, "Not to be a stick in the mud, but what sort of numbers are we talking about, we wouldn't want to do anything foolish, would we?"

Goldfist smirked, "Banks are not in the habit of making guesses . . . however, if he did not now already own a controlling interest in it, you could buy the 'Daily Prophet' without seriously impacting on Lord Potter's ready cash and so you needn't worry too much.

"Also you will each have one of these, they are money bags which are tied to Lord Potters ready cash vault; you can withdraw any kind of muggle or wizarding cash you require from the vault by using one of these bags.

"Is there anything else you need today?"

The Lady answered before anybody else could even get their head together, "Actually they need somewhere comfortable for the group of them to stay, at least for a few days."

Harry looked rather surprised however the goblin opened a thick folder and after examining a few pages said, "It is quite probable that the best place for you to stay, either short or long term, would be 'the Pottery'. It is on the top of Fairy Hill on the Gower peninsular in South Wales; you will be able to sleep, relax and talk there."

Harry interrupted, "I am sorry to butt in; I have no idea what is going on, however everyone else is still deciding things for me. Hermione; please explain to me, what is going on?"

Looking contrite she answered, "I don't know everything Harry, but I have been told that before she died, your mum invoked a plea to the Olympian gods to 'take care of you'. As far as I know all of the girls, including me, were contacted yesterday and asked to come this morning; I have spoken to most of them but none of them appear to know any more than I do." His best friend was obviously not happy with not knowing precisely what was going on.

He smiled at Hermione and then looked at the Lady and asked, incredulously, "Is that all that any of us know?"

This was the second time Harry had questioned her and the Lady realised that in dealing with him, she was dealing with someone who had spent his life being constantly kept in the dark; told half truths and generally manipulated all of the time. Full disclosure would have to be the order of the day, "When we arrive somewhere where we can speak freely I will explain everything to you. We will need to eat either at the same time or before we start with the revelations; so the sooner we start the sooner you will all know what is going on."

The green eyed young man nodded his acceptance of what she had said.

Goldfist smiled and said, "You will need to return here on Sunday, I suggest that nine o'clock would be a good time." The group nodded and he continued, "As I said earlier we have three 'wills' to read and various other business to go through; it is short notice but most, if not all of those summoned should have spent years questioning why this has not been done before rather than sitting around doing nothing. If they do not come it is no great loss to us, they will have been informed and that is all that the law requires."

He pushed an ornate file box across his desk. "If you review as much as you can of the information in here before Sunday, it will be very much to your advantage; in the front of each file there is a summary page, this will probably be sufficient for your current needs."

"Now I do believe that that is all for now, so firstly here is the multi use wand activated portkey to 'the Pottery', it will always take you home; at the moment it can only be activated by a Potter. Secondly, this is a multi use wand activated portkey which will bring you to the steps of this bank, apart from anything else you can use it on Sunday, again you will find that it can only be activated by a Potter."

Having thanked Goldfist they looked between themselves and decided that there was nothing else to ask at this time; so Daphne picked up the file box as they all said goodbye to Goldfist and they all touched the portkey which Harry activated.

**-x-**

Some of the cohort landed in a heap, Harry thought that it was a premeditated heap, because he was on top of Padma and Parvati with Hannah, Susan and Tracy on top of him; the main giveaway was that they were all wiggling up against him.

He was not about to complain.

"Ladies," Daphne said, "have a little decorum, please."

"I've tried decorum before . . . several times," Susan grumbled, "it was never any fun."

There was a general murmuring of agreement, as reluctantly, the girls all stood up and then helped Harry to his feet.

Looking around, they were in a large rectangular inner hall of a very big, refined, elegant, comfortable looking home and they were faced by about two dozen immaculately dressed house elves.

Very eloquently Harry dug into his vast vocabulary and with a smile said, "Hi."

One of the elves said, "Little master Harry is returning but he is now being big mister Harry."

"The Potter's has returned." All the elves were cheering.

The female elf who had spoken first seemed to be in charge _(or at least very bossy)_, she calmed the other elves down and then said to them, "The goblins is being telling us that you is alls coming for here to stay and lunches, so we is having rooms being made readying for you each washing for lunches."

It appeared that the Lady had actually understood what the elf was trying to say, "Thank you for having rooms where we can tidy up before lunch, would you like to show us the way?"

Some of the elves scurried away to carry on with whatever work they had previously been doing, the other elves led the party across the hall and up the wide elegant marble staircase; as they were walking the Lady continued, "For the last fifteen or so years, these elves have had very little contact with humans that is why their speech patterns have deteriorated, they will soon improve now that you are all here and will be talking with them."

At the top of the staircase they realised that there was a gallery all around the lower hall; having been given the clue they looked up carefully and they could see at least four more galleries; there were at least two dozen doors leading to what they assumed would be bedrooms. A tall elf, who told Harry that his name was Zen, took him to the door immediately in front of the head of the stairs and he noticed that Hermione was being led to the one to his right with Daphne being led to the left. He did not have time to see where anyone else went because the bossy little elf was leading him into his room; Zen had also told him that he was the Potters chief elf.

Room . . . calling this a room was a bit like calling Mount Everest a bit of a hill . . . it was vast, the bed was bigger than his room in Privet Drive; when he was younger he had wanted a pair of roller skates, if he dogged the furniture he could really use them in here. No what he really, really wanted was a magic carpet, it might be illegal to use one outside but it couldn't be against the law to use one indoors. He was dragged out of his reverie before he could even look out of the window, the elf was showing him the clothes in this other room that looked like the inside of a triple garage, fitted out as a wardrobe; the elf was telling him that they would get him some more clothes later. What was going on here; now the elf had led him into an indoor swimming pool that he was trying to convince him was his bathroom . . . he ordered him to have a shower . . . so he did . . . then the elf gave him a pile of new clothes and told him to get dressed, so he did . . . life was a lot easier if he just followed the instructions.

Girls would be a lot easier if they came with an instruction manual, something like: buy flowers and feed chocolate on alternate days; he could easily do something like that. The goblins had said that he had loads of money so maybe he could buy a Belgian chocolate factory to keep the girls happy, the elf had put the file box the goblins had given him on the desk in the bedroom, maybe he already owned a chocolate factory.

He had decided to head over to the file box and then he would look out of the window, however this bossy little elf had other ideas and he was led back out onto the landing.

Luna and Hermione were the only two girls currently waiting there, however most of the other girls could be seen heading towards them and Harry said, "I think that the bed in that room is bigger than my room at Privet Drive was."

"My room was gorgeous." said Tracy and Susan in a strange kind of synchronisation.

The group was all there and in a happy, giggling bunch were being led back down the stairs, hopefully and hopeful that they would find some food wherever they were going.

**-x-**

Hermione was sticking close to Harry, he appeared, she thought quite justifiably, to be in a mild form of shock; well what could anyone expect, four hours ago he was laying in a grotty little room in a broken, abused heap and now all this was his. She was shocked by it all, so it was no wonder that he was a little traumatized. "Alright there Harry?" she asked.

"I'm fine." He answered with a slightly puzzled expression on his face and ignoring the expression on her face, he continued, "Actually I am fine, of course I am totally amazed by all of this . . . is this place a manor or castle or a house . . . to me, it doesn't look much like what I think of as a pottery, but it looks brilliant."

"Does it matter?" Daphne asked kindly, "It is very nice and I like it; from what you just said I think that you do as well, it is only Malfoy and others of his ilk that would worry about what to call it. If it comes down to it we can all call it 'Potters Palace' and that will really hack all of the pretentious gits off." All of the other girls were giggling and nodding in agreement with her.

They had been eating whilst they were talking but now they were just nibbling cheese and celery, Hermione suddenly looked determined, she said, "Anyway we are on a promise from the Lady."

The Lady smiled, "Well first I am going to do something I do not do very often, I am going to tell you my name, when I do we can all use it and it will make conversations much easier; my name is Tykhe the Greek goddess of luck and good fortune. You should not use it when there are other humans present who do not have permission to use it; goblins, house elves, centaurs and other sentient races all know who I am so they are not a problem.

"Now what are we all doing here.

"The story begins before Harry was born, at a job interview a somewhat fake seer named Sybil Trelawney, whilst under Albus Dumbledore's imperious curse spoke a completely bogus prophecy which had been concocted by the same Albus Dumbledore. The same Dumbledore had deliberately stationed Severus Snape outside the room where the interview was taking place, for the express purpose of him overhearing the prophecy and carrying it to Tom Riddle. By chance a passing customer saw Snape listening at the door and chased him off; ergo Snape only heard the first two lines and carried them to his true master.

"Because Voldemort regularly used legilimency on his death eaters Dumbledore couldn't just tell the whole prophecy to Snape so Voldemort only ever heard the first two lines; it was this and Voldemort's subsequent actions which gave legitimacy to the phony prophecy.

"Harry, you must understand that your father was brought up to trust Dumbledore and he did; on the other hand your mother did not trust him; she did not grow up in the world of Dumbleworship and to her he was just a rather poor headmaster. Your mother believed that Dumbledore, even back then, was only working for the benefit of Dumbledore and he wasn't particularly concerned with the welfare of anybody else. She also firmly believed that as a school headmaster he should not have been trying to run, what was essentially, a war; if he truly believed in his espoused 'greater good', he would have quit one of the tasks; probably the school.

"This is the background behind why she contacted us; your mother was certain that Dumbledore would not succeed and you would very likely be the one to suffer for his stupidity. So she willingly offered her life in exchange for your survival and eventual happiness; this action by your mother is why I am here . . . to help execute what is virtually 'a happiness contract'."

As Tykhe was talking about his mother, Harry had started gently crying and Hermione started to cuddle him, she was soon joined by Daphne and all of the other girls; when he had calmed down, all of the girls went back to their places; however neither Daphne nor Hermione let go of his hands.

The goddess continued, "Now the focus changes slightly too why are you all here; or more to the point, why are the girls all here, after all it is somewhat obvious why we removed Harry from his previous abode and brought him here.

"Being of the gods has a lot of advantages; one of them is, if we bother to look, being able to see what is going on everywhere at any time, which might be relevant to any situation. So when I was tasked with fulfilling our promise to your mother; I went back to before the phony prophecy was made to try to find out everything that was going on and I think that I did a pretty good job of it.

"It became obvious that Dumbledore's primary target was to be known historically as the greatest wizard ever, greater even than the Merlin, although even with his overinflated ego he knew that he wasn't really as great as the Merlin. So, to this end he wanted to wipe out the Merlin line which is now only found in the Potters, if you bond with Hermione for instance, she should become Lady Hermione Jane Merlin Potter. If all of the other girls adopt similar name structures then all of your children will be of the Merlin line and it will make it far more difficult for other idiots if they try to do the same thing as Dumbledore in the future.

"As I moved forward through your life I had to determine just why you were not happy; it boils down to the fact that you only have one real friend and as you are well aware that it is only Hermione who has never doubted or deserted you. So I went through all of your peers to find some more people who were not only free but also wanted to be friends, or more with both of you; do you think that I have missed anybody?"

Harry thought for a few seconds and suggested, "How about Neville Longbottom?"

Tykhe smiled, "Neville would have been a wonderful addition, except that he has just become betrothed to Mandy Brocklehurst and they are spending nearly all of their time in a greenhouse together."

"They are both nuts about herbology and as long as they like each other they should be fine." Padma said sagely.

Hermione asked thoughtfully, "What about Ginny Weasley?" For reasons she would ask him about later, Harry didn't appear to be too enamoured with her latest idea.

"In their way," Tykhe answered, "the Weasleys are almost as pureblood centric as the Malfoys; we are back to Dumbledore again, it was his machinations that persuaded all of the Weasleys, except Arthur who didn't need persuading, to befriend the pair of you. Apart from anything else the young girl is quite loose morally, she has a very volatile temper and she only really liked the idea of the hero, 'the boy who lived', she was never really into Harry Potter. The pair of you should be wary in the future, if the mother finds out just how much money Harry has she might very well reset Ginny's sights on him again; despite the impression she tries to portray, Molly Weasley is very mercenary."

The bushy haired girl realised that if Harry had any idea about what Tykhe was saying about the Weasleys it would account for his reaction, she promised herself that she would say nothing about it to him.

Hannah was sounding really depressed, "So all we are here for is to try to become better friends with Hermione and Harry?"

"I don't think that Harry is going to thank me for this bit," Tykhe said, however she was smirking, "Daphne, tell us about the major marriage rules as they pertain to the 'Ancient' and the 'Most Ancient' families."

Daphne's eyes went wide and then she gave a huge smile, "The head of any 'Ancient' family is entitled to two wives, if one person is the head of more than one family he is entitled to the wives for each of them. Harry is obviously the head of the Potter family and he has been told this morning that he is also the head of the Black family. The Blacks and the Potters are both 'Ancient' families ergo he can have two wives for each of them.

"Now, if it is a 'Most Ancient' family the situation is much the same except he is entitled to three wives for each of them.

"So Lord Harry James Merlin Gryffindor Hufflepuff Slytherin Black Potter I count four most ancient family names there; as I said before you are also the heir to the ancient family of Black. Earlier this morning, you were responsible for frying the Voldeburger and all of his deluded minions; so, by right of conquest, you collect all of their money, property, chattels and titles. Now my darling Harry you may well have your own personal majority in the Wizengamot. Oh and don't forget that to most of these bigoted, delusional, pure blood, idiots; their wives and daughters are classed as chattels."

The tall Slytherin witch looked like she was going to kiss him but Hermione was having none of that, she was going to be first, so she gently took Harry's face in her hands and kissed him . . . very seriously; when she released him Daphne was followed by all of the other witches in doing pretty much the same thing.

Harry looked like he was in a state of shock, certainly it was good shock but still shock; so the girls asked an elf and they followed her, leading Harry to a very comfortable conservatory.

It took about ten minutes before Harry recovered enough to interrupt their chatter, "I think that we should find some brooms and fly outside a bit, to see where we are living."

"Are we allowed to fly here?" queried Tracey.

"If we're not allowed to fly here, I will live somewhere else." Harry said decisively and without hesitation.

Hermione was trying to avoid a confrontation as she said, "Susan asked the elf who guided us here and he gave us these plans; this one is of the estate and it looks to be about twelve square miles maybe more; and the house is roughly in the middle; about two miles from the muggle repelling wards; there is a curtain wall enclosing some sixty acres. So even if we don't disillusion ourselves, there is no reason I can think of that we couldn't fly around and look at the outside of building and I think that really we need to, it is huge and I for one would like to see the outside then I might be able to make more sense of these other plans."

Susan smiled at him, "Whilst you were out of it, my aunt Amelia sent me an owl; she didn't know where I was going today, but she did know who I was going to see and after the chaos we managed to cause this morning she would like to talk to us. I don't think that she is being too unreasonable." Susan had a broad grin, "If we got rid of all of the death eaters along with the Voldeburger's supporters, that I think were in the government. Then the ministry, apart from anywhere else, will all have gone to Hades in a hand cart and aunty, bless her cotton socks, will be in the middle of it."

Harry smirked, "Suggestions." He said, not even trying to keep a straight face, "I think that we need to make some kind of outline plan to take us as far as the Sunday morning meeting with the goblins."

"Is the Floo working?" Parvati asked.

Harry called Zen and asked him if the floo was working, he was told that it was and they could all leave using it, however he was currently the only person who could use it to enter the property; when they went to the floo Harry could ask the controlling portrait to admit the others. Then Harry asked Zen about brooms and he was told that all of the brooms in the broom cupboard were over fifteen years old, therefore they should not be relied upon although the wards which stop the muggles seeing them when they flew were still working. So he continued by asking about owls and it turned out that the only owl at the Pottery was Hedwig, she had arrived about fifteen minutes after they had.

Tracey's eyes lit up and with an evil grin she said, "Harry darling, you do realise that you will probably have won Pansy and Millicent as well as loads of others, don't you?"

He looked horrified and silence reigned for a minute and then Daphne decided to have sympathy on him, "It doesn't mean anything Harry, if by chance there was to be anybody that you wanted to keep you can, the others you can just cast out; it would leave them without a name; consequently they would no longer be classified as pure bloods; a fitting punishment for that pair and a lot of the others as well come to that."

Padma realised that the subject needed to be changed, "So how many brooms and owls do we need?"

"Hang on a second," Harry interrupted, he had regained his composure, "the most important things first, how long are you all here for? Susan said that her aunt knew who she was going to see but she didn't know where she was going; is there anything different for you others? And do your parents know how long you intend staying here. For that matter do you know how long you would like to stay here?"

Surprising everyone Luna said, "Harry, all of these witches are over seventeen so they are of age, they are all from either neutral or light sided families so there is nobody else in the world that would be better for them to marry . . . either socially or politically. I am the only one who is still underage and my dad has gone off to Patagonia again and last time I was there it was just a bunch of grass, so I didn't want to go with him. I was staying in the house alone and I will sort my dad out if he comes back before school starts, anyway my birthday is on September the second and I will be seventeen. I will stay, at least for the summer . . . if you will have me . . . please." She finished smiling shyly as Harry nodded to her.

"Well that is fine for you Luna," Hermione said, "and my parents are away for the next four weeks, so I have no immediate worries. But what about the rest of you? Seventeen or no, if you came out for the day this morning, it is not really reasonable to your parents, for you not to go home for two or three weeks." She was giggling along with the others so much that she was barely able to get the words out.

Daphne was looking serious, "Firstly, Luna we have been told this morning that you are the Lady Ravenclaw and as such you came of age at fourteen and the goblins are never wrong about these things. Secondly, I think that we should all go and see Susan's aunt, maybe she can get all of the available parents together and we can sort it out with them collectively."

Susan stood up and while she was walking towards the door she said, "I will floo call my aunt and get her to move her butt and arrange the meeting."

"Her aunt won't have time to do that for us, she will be extremely busy." Tracey contemplated.

Hannah Giggled, "None of you know Susan very well, she is a very determined girl, especially when it comes to Harry, so if her aunt wants to see her again this summer she will do it."

Hermione had a big smile, "I don't think that she is alone in that attitude, I have been like that since half way through my first year."

"Don't take this the wrong way Hermione, but at one time I thought that you fancied the Weaslepig, although for the life of me I could never understand why." Hannah was simply stating her thoughts, she wasn't trying to be the least antagonistic.

"To be honest I have thought about that before," Hermione pondered, "and I have never been able to understand it, it's off and on when he is around but as soon as I am away from him for a day or two all I can see is his multitudinous faults; I don't like things that don't make sense." She was looking pleadingly at Harry.

Daphne asked, "Do you think that it was Dumbledolt playing again?"

Tykhe growled and disappeared.

Hygiea said, "We are goddesses so we can be everywhere and every when for that matter, also we can see everything that is in a person's head; Tykhe has seen something in your head that she didn't like so she has gone to check it out."

Fate reappeared, smirking, "I have just extended the remit of Rhamnous and Eris, they were very happy to include the Weaslepig, Mad Molly and the Potions Princess. The trio is about to discover first hand that every action has an equal and opposite reaction . . . I don't think that they will enjoy it . . . very much."

"What do you mean the Potions Princess?" Hermione was not sounding too happy.

Seriously Tykhe replied, "Ginevra has been mixing love potions Harry threw off the one she mixed for him and she thought that she wasn't mixing yours properly because it never really seemed to work."

From the expressions on some of the faces around the room the odds on the pair of youngest Weasleys surviving the next school year were diminishing very rapidly.

A smiling Susan re-entered the conservatory and sat down, "We need to be there in twenty minutes."

Harry stood, "You all look smart so let's go to the floo then I can reset it and you can all use it to re-enter the house when we need to later on . . . that was a stupid thing to say, any time you need to, that's better."

"Anyway," Parvati said as they were walking, "how come the walk in wardrobe in my room was half full of brand new clothes and they were all in my size?" All of the other girls were confirming that their rooms were pretty much the same.

Harry didn't even think about it, but it wouldn't have made much difference if he had, he was swimming in waters he had no experience with and as sensible men know, 'the mind of a woman is a strange and wonderful place which should not be explored by any male,' so he said, "Mine was like that as well, great isn't it, we don't have to waste time shopping for clothes."

He might have been inexperienced with regards to girls, but even he couldn't miss the incoherent spluttering coming from all eight girls; eventually Hermione probably saved his life and said, "Hang on ladies, he has absolutely no experience with girls, Cho was a disaster waiting to happen and the potions princess thing was over before it really started. He has told me that when he went shopping with his aunt he was used as a pack horse and they NEVER EVER bought ANYTHING for him, based on that experience it is no wonder he doesn't want to go clothes shopping."

By this time they had reached the floo grate and Harry spent ten minutes apologising and keying each of them in so that they all could use the floo to return and then they all went to the ministry.

**-x-**

The cohort arrived outside Susan aunt's office with three minutes to spare; her secretary directed them to an executive conference room and when they entered everybody they were not sure they wanted to see, was there.

It was probably inevitable that the first two minutes were utter bedlam with very loud, recriminatory greeting and then the Lady used her power to quieten them all down.

She then told Harry's story, she included: Dumbledore's machinations; Snape and Fudge's involvement; the Dursleys mistreatment; and of course Voldemort and the death eaters. She refused to tell them how Harry had done for him although she did confirm that Voldemort had been banished to Hades along with all of his minions and that minions was not confined to death eaters although it did include all of them.

Telling the story of what had transpired at Gringotts suddenly had all of the parents interest; goblins were notorious for not being helpful and Harry Potter had seen and been helped by Goldfist, the leader of the Goblin nation. The adults were all thinking that this group were the only ones in the room to have actually met Goldfist, heck they were quite probably the only people any of them knew that had met him.

So, how had they managed it; it appeared that they had just walked into the bank, they didn't even ask anything really, they had just been taken to a conference room for Harry to see him. It was common knowledge that Fudge could never even get an appointment to see the goblin leader; it was also quite well known that the fool tried at least once a month.

Tykhe finished by saying, "I believe that you will find the key to your puzzle when I introduce you to Lord Harry James Merlin Gryffindor Hufflepuff Slytherin Black Potter; he has acquired the Slytherin title by conquest. Also do not forget that all of the death eaters titles, money, goods and chattels have passed to Harry as spoils of war, he will probably hold a majority in the Wizengamot.

"Now that you know a lot more of the facts, would you like to discuss the situation, sensibly, with your daughters and come to a mutually agreeable solution?"

Luna, Hermione and Harry sat together, off to one side talking quietly; a beaming Susan was the first to come over to them, she was with her aunt who said, "I thank you for what you have done today, but, as you probably realise, you have given me a massive amount of work, so I will go and get on with it and I hope to see you in the bank, on Sunday morning." After hugging Susan she said goodbye to the room in general and left.

Adrian Greengrass, Daphne's father asked, "What do you intend to do about the titles of the dark families you seem to have acquired Lord Potter?"

"Help us out here please Daphne." Hermione requested, "Exactly what is Harry being asked?"

"Well I do not want to be Lady Malfoy or Lestrange or quite a few others come to that."

Harry thought for a few seconds, "If I am counting correctly I am entitled to more than a dozen wives without using the newly acquired titles, or the Slytherin one if it comes down to it. If we decide to proceed with something you will have the choice of whichever name you want, including the newly acquired ones, however it will be first come first served."

Parvati said, "Won't whatever other name we decide on have Potter tagged on the end of it anyway?"

"In normal everyday use yes," Adrian Greengrass said, "but officially that is not the case, the 'Ancient' or 'Most Ancient' name will come last."

Hermione whispered in his ear, "I would like to be considered for a place please and I will be happy with any name you think I should have."

Harry smiled and nodded at her.

Daphne smirked, "I would bet everything I own that she just asked to be Lady Potter; anyway just to be difficult, if you were to ask me, I would like to be Lady Slytherin. It is a fine Most Nobel and Most Ancient name that should not be allowed to die out because of recent trends; over the centuries many fine wizards have come from his house; we can discuss it if you want to."

In short order the other girls chimed in with Padma and Parvati asking to be Gryffindors; Susan and Hannah going for Hufflepuff; Luna shyly requesting a Potter space; and Tracey, much to Harry's delight, settling on Black.

"So Daphne, you would have lost your bet . . ."

Luna interrupted him, "Daphne you do not know Hermione very well, I would expect her to say that all the names were unimportant, she would just like to be Harry's wife." Hermione's smile told them all they needed to know and that Luna was correct.

Adrian said, "I was a little surprised that none of you picked Merlin."

His wife clipped him around the side of his head, "Honestly he is usually he is better than this, being introduced as Lady Merlin would be a hell of a lot to live up to and think of the poor children at a Hogwarts sorting ceremony, think man." Adrian had a fine pout.

"Would I be correct in assuming that you ladies have sorted out your differences with your parents?" The girls were all smiling and nodding to Harry. "So what are we all going to do now?"

Hermione queried, "Am I the only one of us who has all of my things with me?"

Luna took a shrunken multi compartment trunk out of her pocket, "The Lady shrank this for me this morning; was that this morning, it seems like ages ago."

Susan pouted, "I don't really want to go home on my own but my aunt is being run ragged and it's all Harry's fault so he should come home with me . . . Hermione and Luna can come too."

"I will go back to a question which was postulated at the house earlier, brooms and owls; do any of you have your own owl?"

Receiving shaken heads all round he continued, "Do any of you have your own broom?"

After another set of negative responses he continued, "Then really I want to go to Diagon Alley to buy some owls and brooms, so if I go there Luna and Hermione can go with Susan."

As soon as he had finished he realised that he was in all kinds of trouble.

Susan was giving him a look, he wasn't sure what kind of look it was but it was definitely a look; then she said, "I can go without knickers for a few days it doesn't matter, but you mister are not going to Diagon Alley on your own. We were accosted by a hoard of randy over enthusiastic fan girls this morning; if you go there on your own you will never survive. The three of us will go with you . . . ok?"

He was getting a body guard whether or not he wanted one, but unlike the Order of the Phoenix the reason was being explained to him and it made sense, so smirking, Harry looked around at all of the girls and said, "Yes dear."

All of the parents cracked up and he poked his tongue out at Susan; so the rest of the girls cracked up as well, so Susan turned beetroot.

Daphne's mother smiled and said, "He'll manage."

Her daughter however was a different matter and Daphne said, "Mother, have Suria pack my things, I will come or call her to bring them when we get home; I shall also accompany Harry to Diagon Alley."

**-x-**

Four girls, two goddesses and Harry Potter eventually arrived in the Leaky Cauldron which, luckily for them, was deserted.

The party made its way to Eeylops Owl Emporium with Harry hidden as much as possible in the middle of the girls; as soon as they arrived at the shop Harry called Hedwig and he told the girls that she would guide any owls he bought home.

The shop was bereft of customers so they had quite a good look around; Snowy owls are quite rare, however the shop had six all from different sources, so he bought all of them. Hedwig had arrived so Harry asked her and she agreed to guide the new owls home.

Looking a bit dubious Daphne asked quietly, "Does he always talk to his owl?"

Before Hermione could Luna answered, "Hedwig is Harry's familiar and they understand each other very well; there were times, when he was locked up at the Dursleys, when she was the only thing that kept him sane, things like that tend to make you very close."

Susan and Daphne were looking at each other very sombrely and both Luna and Hermione thought that if ever there was an opportunity the Dursleys, apart from all of their other troubles, might well be meeting a pair of vengeful witches.

The seven of them made their way over to Quality Quidditch Supplies where all of their plans were nearly undone . . . the shop was packed.

Luckily the store owner made his way over to greet Harry and he ordered ten Cleansweep all weather brooms to be delivered to the Pottery; the owner promised that they would be delivered that evening.

Tykhe asked the owner if they might leave via the store's floo which he was inclined to decline, that was until the Lady pointed out that if Harry went out of the front door, virtually all of the people in the shop would follow him, so he agreed.

Ten minutes later they left with the four witches and the wizard each carrying two of the brooms.

None of the others had arrived home so Daphne went to her house for her things and the others went to Susan's for hers; so she wouldn't have to be knickerless the next day, she seemed somewhat disappointed.

None of the girls had checked to see if the house elves had in fact bought them underwear, they seemed to be in agreement with Susan that underwear was an unnecessary encumbrance.

**-x-**

By the time that they sat down for dinner all of the girls had returned, it was generally a happy meal and the only slight disappointment was the Olympian goddesses telling them that they would be going home after dinner. The goddesses leaving was not really a surprise, the surprise was Tykhe telling Harry that if things, for him, seemed to be going pear shaped he could recall her, when he was alone, by calling her name.

After dinner when they had said goodbye and the goddesses had left, one of the elves took them to a side door, with their brooms and they flew around the outside of the Pottery for about an hour and a half, which was when it was starting to get dark.

At first Harry had to help and encourage Hermione a lot; her experience with the school brooms in their first year had really put her off riding a broom. When she realised that the new broom was a lot more comfortable and was doing exactly as she asked she was a lot happier, so they got a good idea of the disposition of the buildings comprising the Pottery.

Harry couldn't understand why Hermione and the rest of the girls had been confused with the plans for the layout of the Pottery and he supposed that they should call it a castle. There was an outer curtain wall enclosing about sixty acres; it was pretty much a square and each of the sides were about five hundred yards long, with turrets at each of the corners. The south western corner turret was about twice the diameter of the other three and twice as high, he would have to check into the reason for this later. Fortified gateways (although they had not examined these closely) were in the centre of each wall with smaller defensive turrets each side of the entrances.

The enclosed grounds had storerooms, abutting the curtain wall; stables, also by the curtain wall; a swimming pool with an opening roof; and a Quidditch pitch, Hermione had asked him why they would need a Quidditch pitch and he explained to her that it would have special shield charms that stopped the snitch and bludgers from charging off and getting lost.

**-x-**

Later, after they had showered and changed into very comfortable clothes, the elves directed them to an enormous library; keeping several of the girls away from the books was only accomplished by Harry promising them all that whatever any of them eventually decided the library would always be available to them.

Daphne had proved her worth by adding that this offer would only remain open as long as they never betrayed Lord Harry or the rest of the group; funnily enough all of the girls had thought that this was a good addition.

When they had all settled down they could see that Harry had brought the file box which the goblins had given him and the plans of the house (he had checked the plans and modified the charm that only allowed Potters to see them properly), however he said, "Well ladies we have to make some kind of plan as to how we are going to move forward, I don't mean what we are going to do each day but us as a group. I like you all well enough but we are talking about wedding's or bonding or some such thing and from what I hear, that is a lifetime commitment, which makes it pretty serious stuff and both ways we need to decide what we each personally want."

He had paused so Daphne quietly said, "It is as well to make sure that you all know what I have found out in the Greengrass library, the same information is probably in this one as well, but I know my way around the one in 'Greenfields', so I searched there.

"There is quite a complex procedure for Harry to activate the power of all of the families he is head of; however the simplest thing for him to do is to bind one of us to the name, this will magically activate it.

"The 'Ancient' and the 'Most Ancient' families use bonding for this and to cement their relationships; there is a multiple bonding ceremony that would suit our situation, however it would need to be cast by Harry's primary wife. Yes, I am well aware that he will have to be bound to one of us first and as far as I can see that would be Hermione, she is the only one of us he is comfortable enough to voluntarily bond with, at the moment; although I must admit that I am close, very close." Several of the girls nodded at this.

She continued, "The hard line pure bloods would have everyone believe that the bonding ceremony can only be performed by certain people, it is simply that they want to know who is doing what with whom . . . this is a load of old Hippogriff doo doo. As I said I had a little look in the Greengrass library and I am not particularly surprised at what I found; there are two bonding ceremonies, I will outline them in reverse order of desirability.

"The second is the one that the pure bloods normally use, it imposes a bond on a couple; not everybody who has this done is opposed to the idea of the bonding and any 'of age' witch or wizard can carry out this ceremony.

"The first can sometimes occur naturally although it can be requested, of 'the powers that be' by the couple, any 'of age' couple; it does not appear possible for a woman to bind more than one man, however a man can bind more than one woman. In this context 'the powers that be' refer to what we would also call 'Higher Magic'. It is rumoured that if one or both of the couple are powerful enough, this bonding can occur naturally.

"Neither of these are soul bonds, soul bonds are the prerogative of the gods; although it is not unknown for a soul bond to form when a magical bond has been requested by particularly close couples. There is no record of a soul bond occurring between more than one man and one woman; however provided both of the couple agree, other witches can subsequently be magically bound to the husband.

"If any of us or our parents particularly want a wedding, it can take place anytime afterwards; but for the hereditary thing it is only the bonding that counts in the wizarding world.

"There is one particularly important question; are we all virgins, I know that I am?"

There was a chorus of positive responses, however everybody looked at Parvati, "I can understand your thoughts but basically it is all an act to placate Lavender, Hermione will tell you what she is like."

"And the flirting with anything over the age of thirteen?" Susan asked wryly.

"Ok, I have been a bit flirty, again that's mainly for Lavender, but I am not really like that, well only a little bit and nothing like as much as I usually come over; also I do realise that I will have to stop it. That will be very easy with you lot as a support or execution cohort. Actually the only boy who really tried it on with me couldn't write for a week and he couldn't walk properly for over a month." She was grinning as she said this. Harry and Hermione smiled they both knew that she was talking about Cormac Mclaggen.

Hermione was also smiling, "So for the moment we are all going forward . . . so rules?"

Daphne immediately said, "No intercourse until after the couple are bonded, people think that this is a pure blood, old family thing, however I do not think it is just a pure blood thing; it seems to be important to support the couples magic."

Tracey had a huge grin, "So anything short of actual sex goes."

Hannah's grin was at least as big as Tracey's, "Provided it is with the agreement of both parties; and I will tell you now Harry that I agree, whatever it is you want, I agree."

All of the girls burst into fits of giggles, however they were all nodding happily.

Harry looked quite serious and concerned, "We all seem to be getting on very well, I will be very happy if it continues; Tykhe has brought us together and I am pretty sure that it was not just a random thing, with a little effort we can all be comfortable together. As some of you are well aware I am not particularly big on rules so for now this can be my contribution; don't fret or sulk, talk about it; I don't think that it really needs any explanation.

"So Hermione what is your take on all of these girls being here at the behest of Tykhe, why now, why not earlier; quite frankly I'm a bit confused by it all."

Looking thoughtful, Hermione half smiled at him, "I am not surprised that you are a bit confused by all that has happened to you today, if something similar had happened to me I would be pulling my hair out. However be assured that I have been talking, watching and listening all day and as far as I can tell I don't think that the Lady has planted any ideas, thoughts or emotions into anybodies head. I do think that she might have released a few inhibitions also maybe bringing a few buried desires to the front of some of the girls consciousness; I don't think that she has tried to force any of us to like each other, she has just buried the cross house perverted rule not to and then let us get on with it. We are all reasonably intelligent people and throughout the day we have all tried to think before we reacted and it has been working pretty well, for all of us."

"Anyhow all of that we can ponder at our leisure, earlier you said first come first served so . . ." She jumped on him and whilst she was seriously kissing him she moved his right hand onto her left breast.

When they eventually separated Harry said, "Hermione, you should try a little decorum."

Grinning she looked into his eyes and said, "I tried decorum earlier, but Susan was having much more fun." The nine of them cracked up.

The bushy haired girl started snogging him again but Susan said loudly, "You are hogging Harry, you should let someone else have a turn."

"I'm sorry," she said, not looking the least bit contrite, "I have been waiting to do this since Halloween first year, that's five and a half nearly six years, so now I have started I don't want to stop."

The sympathetic nods and looks didn't stop the other girls dragging Hermione off of him and having their share.

**-x-**

Whilst they had been flying, Hermione had asked Harry if he wanted them to start going through the box of files which the goblins had given him to review and he had agreed that it wouldn't hurt, then for some odd reason he had asked her to see if he owned a chocolate factory. So in the breaks between their turns the girls started going through the listings of his assets; the file box automatically shrank everything that was placed in it and whilst checking it seemed like he owned bits of everything, usually pretty big bits.

"This is a bit different to ours." Currently it was Tracey's turn so all of the other girls came over to look at what Hannah had found.

"What do you mean?" Daphne asked.

She replied, "Well we live in a beach front house near Fowey in Cornwall and with the wonderful British weather we get to use the beach for about ten days a year and that's a good year. This house has twenty bedrooms and it is right on the beach, but it's on the west coast of Barbados; I bet you can use the beach every day, even the rain there is supposed to be warm."

"We should keep that file out." Hermione suggested, "Maybe we can go there when all of this mess is sorted out."

"You mean like Tuesday?" Susan suggested with feigned innocence.

"Chance would be a fine thing." Daphne sounded despondent.

"It's not really that long until we will be going back to Hogwarts." Even Hermione didn't sound all that keen.

Harry had surfaced from Tracey and Padma was moving over for her turn when he said, "I'm not particularly inclined towards returning to Hogwarts, especially if we are all going to be separated into all four houses; we can get private tutors, almost anywhere in the world, if anyone is interested in learning more and then we can go to live on the west coast of Barbados." He had obviously been listening.

Having provoked a discussion he returned to snogging Padma.

Eventually it was time for bed and they all started moving out of the library.

**-x-**

Going up the stairs, smiling brightly Susan said, "I have an idea . . . we all know that tomorrow is Harry's birthday and I know that I for one have not had the chance to buy him a birthday present. So, I propose that tomorrow none of us wear's a bra or knickers and as frequently as is convenient throughout the day we ensure that Harry checks that we have complied with this proposal."

It looked as if Harry had been hit with _petrificus totalus_ he was stupefied on the stairs, he was totally out of it; but he did have a big silly grin on his face.

"Susan!" Hermione laughingly exclaimed, "You've broken him! You know that he has never really had a girlfriend before; I agree with your proposal but you have to be careful, he is not used to all of this and you have to lead him into things like that . . . gently." As she was explaining this she, Daphne and the Patil twins had picked Harry up and all of the girls were heading with them to his room.

The four free girls from the escort started to look around his room whilst the four girls who were carrying him were trying to manoeuvre him into the middle of his gigantic bed. Because of its size it was nearly impossible until the girls decided to climb onto the bed with him, it soon degenerated into a lot of groping and it did not take them very long to decide to get him ready for bed.

The way they were acting it was difficult to believe that all four girls were virgins and three of them were really quite naive, they had found a pair of silk sleeping shorts on Harry's pillows and all four of them had great fun putting them on him. In all honesty they had first had fun taking all of his clothes off, that had been quite good fun; but it had been nothing compared to putting his sleeping boxers back on him and then making sure that he was comfortable inside them, they had each checked this . . . twice. Checking some more was postponed because he had become restless and they were afraid of waking him up.

The four realised that explaining to a recently awakened Harry just why one of them had her hand inside his boxers would not be the easiest thing that any of them had ever done.

Daphne had told them that Pansy was always complaining that Draco was only four and a half inches; Parvati relayed Lavender's happy revelation that Dean Thomas was six and a half inches which in her experience was well above average, for a wizard. What would they think of Harry that . . . delightful appendage was at least seven inches and it wasn't even hard; apart from anything else they had all read the bodice ripper novels, which did the rounds of the upper year girls dorms, they had a pretty good idea of what went where.

Their next problem was where to sleep, in actual fact the logic became very simple; the bed was very big and if he woke up alone in it he might be frightened, so they would sleep in the bed with him, this would reassure him . . . hopefully. It had been Hermione who had proposed this wonderful piece of logic; she had simply glared at Parvati when the young Indian girl had reminded her that Harry had saved her from a two ton twelve foot tall mountain troll when he was only eleven. The others didn't let this bother them either, they just, gratefully, accepted the logic that let them do what they fully intended doing anyway.

The next problem was what were they going to sleep in? Once again Logic dictated that it had to be knickers, if they left the bed the other four might to try to move into their premium places; it really is amazing how quickly four girls can strip down to their knickers.

No matter how hard the four on the bed were trying, the four who had just come out of his bathroom didn't believe that they were totally innocent and all four of them wanted a thong like the one Hermione was wearing. The other three on the bed had decided the same thing, about the thong, a few minutes earlier and they were on a promise that as soon as they went muggle shopping, they could soon find a shop that sold them and a lot of other nice underwear. _(They still hadn't bothered to check in their rooms.)_

The four incumbents questioned the four who were stripping out of their clothes why they had been so long, the answer of, 'we couldn't decide if Harry had a bath or a swimming pool, was somewhat confusing. We eventually decided that he had a bath that was big enough to swim laps in, or, more importantly, fit all nine of us in comfort; although this intrigued the four on the bed even more their curiosity wasn't sufficiently aroused to tempt them into moving.

Harry was obviously now soundly asleep so after Padma had extinguished the lights they all settled down to sleep.

**Additional Authors Note:** I am well aware that Harry Potter's seventeenth birthday was on a Thursday however that does not fit in with this story, so I changed it to a Saturday; thank you. Also; we have probably seen the last of the Olympian Gods.


	2. Chapter 2

**Disclaimer; **All of the human characters appearing in this fantasy version of the period around Harry Potter's seventeenth birthday belong to J. K. Rowling; a lot of other stuff belongs to her as well so, as is my want, I freely offer anything that might possibly be mine to her as well. She has so many solicitors and suchlike working for her, she could probably claim it all anyway.

**Authors Note: **There will be no descriptive sex in this story and after their bonding I am generally going to ignore the sex which will occur between the members of the cohort. If you just remember that Harry now is a fit and healthy seventeen year old male and he will do his best to keep the eight ladies he is going to acquire happy. If I was to write in all of the sex the story would start to be buried within it, besides which this site would quite rightly take the story down; if you like that kind of thing then I would recommend you joining my yahoo group and ask I am certain that someone there will direct you.

**Day 02 **

_**It is Saturday July the thirty first and the time is approximately 05.30 and it is also Harry Potter's Seventeenth Birthday. **_

It was only just getting light out and he had barely drifted into consciousness, his problem was that he needed the loo but, in the best possible way he was trapped; each of his shoulders had a female head _(facing away from him)_ parked on it; apparently sleeping soundly. Also, to add to his chagrin, each of his hands had one of the young ladies boobs cupped and being kneaded in it, he had decided that this, although new to him, was rapidly becoming one of his favourite occupations; but life was so unfair . . . he was going to be forced to move.

When, very reluctantly, he started to release the boob in his right hand Hermione's voice said, "Just where do you think that you are going Mr Potter?"

"Honestly, I really don't want to go anywhere but unfortunately I need to go to the loo." He pleaded.

She turned around and then cast a silent, wand less spell on his stomach area.

"That's a lot better thank you, what was it that you did?" he was rather inquisitive.

Happily she replied, "It was a medical spell that Mme Pomfrey showed me, it relieves pressure on the bladder; so you see, spending far too much time in the infirmary taking care of you sometimes has its uses."

She could hear the smirk in his voice when he said, "I am sure that was exactly the use Mme Pomfrey intended you to put it to when she spent her time teaching it to you."

He kissed her and it exceeded, by several orders of magnitude anything either of them had experienced before, "Thank you, for all that you have done for me over the years."

"It was my pleasure Harry and happy birthday."

"Why don't you two stop prattling on and start snogging, then maybe I can get some more sleep?"

"If Harry stops playing with my boob so he can snog Hermione you are dead meat Miss Davis; oh, happy birthday Harry . . . and Hermione could you please cast that spell on me as well?" Daphne had no wish to move, she was very comfortable and soon, thanks to Hermione, to be much more so.

Harry and Hermione kissed some more and then he said, "I seem to vaguely remember some sort of an agreement being made yesterday that you are all in violation of . . . you're all wearing knickers."

There was a mad scramble on the bed and knickers went flying all over the room.

"Tracy didn't move." Susan told them a minute later.

"She has probably gone back to sleeeeeeeepooooooooooh!" When she had taken her knickers off, Daphne had turned around and moved Harry's hand so he could prove that she didn't have any knickers on; Hermione had done much the same thing but hers and Harry's tongues were currently trying to exchange mouths and she wasn't being quite so vocal.

Susan had started plotting aloud, "I want some of what Daphne is getting, no, I want a lot of what Daphne's getting, so I think that we should all go and have a shower, his shower is enormous and we will easily all fit in it together. There's not a snowballs chance in hell that any of us are going to move either of those two harlots to get our share if we just stay here and wait."

The response from members of the cohort was varied, one totally ignored her because she was indeed sound asleep again, five were in total agreement with her and three didn't seem to have even heard the proposal.

It was possibly a pity that the three hadn't heard the proposal, but it was quite deliberate that they didn't hear the whispered conspiracy being hatched by the other five.

When the five conspirators had found their wands which for some obscure reason had been well buried in the clothing detritus on the bedroom floor; they levitated the three from the bed, directly to the shower which they had started running at a very pleasant temperature. They had been going to make the shower ice cold, but Luna had warned them against that, fearing any adverse reaction from either Hermione or more worrying still Harry, could inadvertently kill one of the perpetrators. The three sprang apart and subsequently all eight of them had a very pleasant shower; meaning that all of the girls bits had been introduced to the delights of contact with the hands of a male of whom you totally approved. It must also be confirmed that three of the seven girls had had close contact with a part of the male anatomy which to this point in their lives, had only been the subject of their abstract speculation.

When she woke up Tracey would likely be as sick as a parrot.

Tracey was still asleep as the seven other girls made their now dry but still unclothed way back to their rooms, they and Harry were going to meet up and continue the previous evening's discussion, they would once again be in the library.

It was obvious that the elves had been busy overnight; when Harry had gone into his dressing room he discovered that it had a large selection of clothes from both magical and muggle worlds; there were also eight housecoats that were obviously for the girls. For the first time in his life he had the rather novel problem of deciding what to wear, previously he had never had enough clothes to create any sort of selection problem. He was not really that fussed about clothes so it did not take him long to decide to wear a wizard robe and no boxers; after all, it was the girls who had made the 'no underwear' rule and the weather was warm enough so he didn't much mind.

Harry came out of his room and none of the girls were in sight so he went an tapped gently on Hermione's door, when she answered it he asked her if she would like to be bound to the House of Potter, for her part the topaz eyed beauty didn't say a word . . . she just dragged him into her room and kissed him . . . very seriously. Both of them had felt the surge in their hearts and their magic and realised that a bond had formed spontaneously; they didn't hesitate and immediately consummated it.

The other six girls met up on the landing outside Harry's room, Luna could see a golden glow from around Hermione's door; as the glow became brighter Luna had her hands shading her eyes as she said, "I believe that they are binding . . . and the glow is nearly blinding; well they have very neatly solved one of the problems we talked about yesterday evening."

When the couple eventually came out of Hermione's room the six girls congratulated the newly joined couple who seemed to be in a bit of a daze and still hadn't spoken but they had huge smiles as they started making their way slowly down the flight of stairs.

At the bottom of the stairs, in the main hall, all of the Potter elves had gathered to greet the new Lady Potter and following Potter family tradition, she had to lay her right hand, in turn, on each of the elves heads. It was as well that she had given up her earlier ideas of freeing all elves; she now knew that they loved to serve and should be treated with the kindness and respect the race had earned for hundreds of years, it only ever became a problem if they were mistreated.

Lady Hermione Jane Merlin Potter did not yet realise that she now had, with her husband, acquired the power to go to the Wizengamot and change all of the restrictive laws against species and the underprivileged sections of the community. It was as well that the other seven witches who were here with them knew what she was like and were very much in agreement with what she . . . and Harry wanted to achieve.

Hermione turned to her friends and said, "As you no doubt noticed, we have just consummated our binding and all I want to do is take Harry back to bed and keep consummating for a year or three, however until all those who wish to be bound, are bound, then that would be extremely selfish of me. So I will make a temporary rule for us; 'no secondary sex for the next week or until all seven of you are bound, whichever is the sooner, of course this is always assuming that Tracey gets up sometime in the next few days."

The six girls started giggling along with the happy couple; now 'sick as a parrot' didn't begin to cover it.

It was still very early in the morning, however in the library they found that the elves had laid out tea, coffee, milk, three kinds of juice and two large plates of shortbread biscuits.

Luna pouted, "I always have 'Coca Cola' first thing in the morning." Fifteen seconds later two large bottles of the diet decaffeinated verity of said drink appeared on the table, wondering if it was a coincidence because this was the kind she liked best; out loud she said, "Potter elves are the bestest elves in the whole wide world." All of them felt the warm glow from the elves; an elf had actually been to Luna's home to find out which kind she liked and had actually brought the bottles from there; later when the muggle shops opened he would replace them.

Having helped themselves to what they wanted for a pre breakfast snack they all sat themselves down and suddenly Parvati said, "What on earth is that on your hands, the pair of you?"

Looking at their hands Harry realised that he knew what all of these rings were; the ring on his left hand seemed to be pouring knowledge into him almost as quickly as he could absorb it, the one on his right hand was doing much the same but at a more reasonable pace.

To the others he explained that on his left hand ring finger was the Potter family ring and on the pinkie of his right hand was the Head of Merlin Clan ring, both of these rings were platinum, the relevant family crest seemed to be detached and suspended above them. Hermione's rings were also platinum, on her wedding finger the ring had a three eighths of an inch square emerald that had the Potter arms floating in its centre, the right hand ring had the same size emerald with the Merlin house arms floating in it. _(Three eights of an inch is approximately ten millimetres, as has been stressed at various times, the wizarding world is somewhat out of touch with its muggle counterpart; we will no doubt touch on this subject again sometime in the not too distant future.) _

Together the couple said, "Wow!" Apart from all of the information they were transmitting, the rings were things of incredible beauty; it was obvious to him that Hermione's rings were doing the same to her as his were to him.

The couple explained to the rest of the cohort what the rings were and about them transmitting a lot of information on both the Potter family, Merlin himself and the Merlin Clan. The Potter family information was both ancient and more recent, it was almost like a pensive memory of what it considered to be most important.

All of the girls were gobsmacked simply by the beauty of all four of the rings, however Daphne seemed to be awed, "If you thought that you caused chaos with what you did yesterday, it will be almost nothing compared to the riot which will happen when the Merlin family rings appear in public. Also from the look of those Potter family rings, the Potter family has been elevated to 'Most Noble' and 'Most Ancient' status. I have only ever been told by my father and read about rings like these, I have never actually seen any, if any others still exist the families who own them will have to dig them out and start using them. In reality the kind of stuck up prigs who generally shout their mouth's off claiming Most Noble and Most Ancient status; are the kind of self centred morons who would be sure to wear them just so they could wave them in people's faces.

"The legend is . . . hang on it's a lot more than a legend it's a 'High Magic Edict' so it never gets written down . . . so the rule seems to be that if you abuse the power these rings bestow on you then the rings will disappear and the family will no longer have the status, supposedly it is the rings which bestow the power. Obviously the Ancient bit is simply a matter of looking in the records although those don't go back that far and a suspiciously high percentage of what we might call dodgy families records seem to get destroyed or lost. It is the Noble and Most Noble part that is affected and from what you are both saying also the way the ones who I believe are lying, carry on. I am prepared to believe that it is only those who hold unselfishly to the benefit of the magical world, who retain the Noble and Most Noble power and status."

"I can feel it." The couple said together and smiled at each other.

Daphne continued, "As I said most of the people who claim 'Most Noble' status no longer appear to have the rings to back the claim up and as ring holders, you have the right, which is enshrined by Higher Magic, to be backed up by the Department of Magical Law Enforcement, to call on anyone claiming Most Noble status to produce the relevant family ring.

"Talk about twisted knickers theirs will have granny knots in them.

"I think that we are beginning to find out why the goblins treated us the way they did; they have their own way of telling but I bet that they also knew that through you, we would have the will and the power to change the magical world to a fairer and more just society."

An owl arrived distracting them as it went to Susan, she took the letter off his leg and gave him some shortbread; "No secrets," she murmured loud enough for them all to hear, they were all going to be in this together; so she read the letter aloud:

"_Dear Susan, _

_I trust that you have had an enjoyable night and I also trust that you are not yet pregnant._ ('Chance would be a fine thing I'm still a virgin'. Susan was muttering again.) _Actually as long as you are bonded getting pregnant is entirely up to you and nothing at all to do with me. _

_I have sent you this so that you might inform your Lord that there is to be a full meeting of the Wizengamot, it has been called for by the Ministry of Magic Internal Administration Department. It is timed for Wednesday at 09:00 supposedly it is to appoint a new Minister of Magic, it should be interesting especially if you all turn up uninvited. _

_It doesn't appear that the Wizengamot has as yet become aware that they are currently without a Chief Warlock; they need to appoint one of those before they can do anything else. This is a long standing rule and there has to be a new Royal Witch or Wizard before the Wizengamot is empowered to enact any other business. _

_Harry should receive an official notification of this meeting, it would normally be sent out by the Wizengamot recorder, however as far as I can tell he has gone to visit Harry's friend Hades along with quite a few others. So I await with interest whether he receives a notification or not, I will be surprised if he does, notwithstanding all that, please ensure that he realises that, if required, the Department of Magical Law Enforcement is at his call. _

_The only thing that anyone requires for admission to the voting floor is an Ancient or Most Ancient family ring and if necessary those can be sorted out for you with the goblins in Gringotts tomorrow. _

_Love to you and all fellow members of your cohort, oh and Happy Birthday Harry, _

_Love again Aunt Amelia."_

**-x-**

Harry was suddenly very alert, "Susan, it's still early but do you think that your aunt would like to come here for breakfast?"

"Why?" Susan didn't want to drop her aunt any further in the mire they were generating, she was probably already knee deep in it.

"At the moment she is the only person in the Ministry who I am certain that I can trust." Was Harry's sincere answer.

"Then of course," Susan said as though it was obvious, she stood up and she disappeared towards the floo happily holding Harry's hand.

Seconds after they left a bleary eyed Tracey staggered into the library and the Patil twins started filling her in on all of the delights she had missed out on.

Daphne drooled, "It was like a light coming on, there was something that needed doing and he was there doing it."

Luna smiled, "And there you see one of the reasons why we who know him well, will follow him anywhere he leads us."

"We will have to keep a close eye on him if things start to get hectic in the future, he has never found it easy to delegate anything or found it at all easy to ask for help from anyone, so we must all watch him and try to share the load." Hermione was trying to help them understand her Harry . . . she liked that, he would now always be, 'her Harry'.

Amelia Bones arrived with Susan and Harry, she seemed quite surprised to see all nine of the cohort already very much awake; although one, was that Tracey Davis, really looked as sick as a parrot . . . maybe two parrots, "So what is so urgent?" she asked.

Susan looked resolute, "Auntie, I promise you that you are not going to hear anything illegal, but we will need a secrecy vow before we can tell you our secrets."

Amelia had very few concerns with any of this group so immediately made the magical promise; with the promise in place Harry and Hermione showed her their rings.

"Morgana's flaming knickers!" was not exactly the thing they expected her to say but then she started laughing as though it was the funniest thing ever . . . then, when they all started thinking about it, perhaps, in its own way, it was.

Eventually she settled down and said, "I can see why you want these rings kept secret for the moment, however if you want to use the additional political power they bestow on you, you will have to reveal them."

It had been quite some time since Hermione had actually said very much of consequence, she had been assimilating the knowledge she was gaining from her Merlin and Potter rings, now however she said, "Outside of the group here, Harry and I do not know or really trust many people anywhere and we probably have the power to decide who will be the next Minister of Magic. At the moment I only trust one person in the ministry and she is currently sitting in our library drinking tea.

"The question is obviously open to everyone here. Who should be the next Minister of Magic?"

Silence.

More silence.

"You managed to break all of them at once darling, you're better than Susan . . . what she said only managed to break me."

After another couple of minutes Daphne was the first to speak and after a couple of false starts she said, "Mme Bones would be the best person, if she is prepared to do the job."

"Let's all go and have some breakfast." It was Hannah who had, very sensibly, suggested it and then she stood up, everyone else stood and they all followed one of their elves into the breakfast room, as they arrived their breakfast was just appearing on the table.

Spending the next fifteen minutes thinking while they were eating didn't seem quite as dire as sitting in silence in the library had appeared to be.

Eventually it was inevitable that Amelia should ask, "What would you want me to do?"

Daphne was quite forthright, "We would want you to do the job that the Minister of Magic is supposed to do, we want you to guide the magical world through the chaos that we started yesterday and is currently still building up. So far we have only kicked the wizarding world in the privates to get its attention, next we are going to give Hagrid a beaters bat and ask him to caress the same area."

"Sounds rather painful." Amelia opined.

"It probably will be." Susan confirmed.

"You're going to change everything, aren't you?" Amelia didn't sound a hundred percent happy and was still only nibbling at the bait.

"Not everything," Hermione entered the discussion, "there has to be some good things out there still, but there is so much crap mixed in with them, none of us can see the wood for the trees. Don't dare laugh but I read a lot and I have talked to a lot of . . . older people, the magical world didn't used to be like this; in some things we need to go back, maybe a hundred years, possibly more, to keep the real traditions not those that Malfoy and those of his ilk tried to inflict on everyone.

"In some of the other things we need to move forward by the same amount, we need to be keeping the wizarding traditions that matter but we should try not to let them inhibit progress or personal freedom. Daughters are not commodities to be bartered by their father's for any reason I can think of, or betrothed against their will again for any reason I can think of; if anybody has any suggestions as to when it might be appropriate then I am prepared to listen to them.

"Changing the target slightly; I have read a fairly detailed description of our house in Barbados; it is warded but it has magically operated panel lighting, computers with e-mail, telephones and it has a portal. The portal is set up so any of us could step through it and come out in one of our other houses in Canada or Florida or Australia or Switzerland and several other places; what earthly reason is there not to be allowed to have one in this house? Around the world there are a fair number of public portals in hotels, government offices and such place; every magical area in Australia has one, for us that would be like the Ministry, Diagon Alley, platform nine and three quarters and Hogsmeade. If, for instance, if one of us tried to use the one in the Canadian Ministry of Magic, we would arrive outside the security check point, if we worked there and used the correct pass code we would bypass security, there are ultra high security models as well.

"Outside of Europe, the British wizarding community are a laughing stock and I don't like being laughed at; the majority of the rest of Europe are being laughed at just as much as us. Only Switzerland seems to have its act together which is why it is the only European country where the International Confederation of Wizardry will meet. Even more ridiculous is the fact that the majority of these modern magical things were developed by and are being produced by various Potter owned companies based in Japan, Australia, Canada and the United States; it is illegal to bring the jobs and ergo the taxable revenue to this country.

"How crazy is that?

"Apart from anything else we are going to do something about the lunatic portions of our eighteenth century society."

Harry was going to get his six pennyworth in, "Leaving out transportation, muggles can do about ninety five percent of what we do and they don't use magic, in this country, using magic, we can do less than fifty percent of what muggles can without, in Australia that figure rises to over ninety percent. We intend changing the disparity between here and Australia; the blond ponce no longer visits the ministry, Malfoy and the other minions are all dead, so they can no longer bribe Fudge and the Wizengamot to stop everything the Voldeburger didn't want to fit into his outdated perception of the world.

"In recent years a lot of the problem has also been the curmudgeonly old farts in the Wizengamot itself and we will be dealing with that self serving oligarchy . . . probably starting on Wednesday; it is time for them to start serving the people they are supposed to serve instead of themselves.

"What we need you to do is to keep the rest of the magical world running whilst other people bludgeon through the rule changes.

"Anyway how does an importation restriction get changed and how long does it take?"

Amelia thought for a moment, "Applying and removing importation restrictions is actually quite straightforward, I know that at this moment you are most concerned with removing them so I will go with that; anyway applying them is virtually the reverse.

"It is the Minister of Magic who has to be convinced to put the item or items before the Wizengamot for removal from the list. The items in question will have been suggested to the Minister in any number of ways. Generally it is a committee for just about anything or a member of the business community worried about competition; recently it has been Malfoy with a bag of gold in lieu of a sound argument. Whatever the Minister must be the first one to be in agreement.

"The Minister will hand the matter over to the Senior Undersecretary for a suitable document to be drafted, the matter would then be brought before the Wizengamot for their approval or otherwise.

"So dependant mainly on goodwill, the process can take anything from an hour up to several months; is that enough of an answer for you?"

The cohort were nodding in approval so Amelia continued, "I am going to need help for the next few days and other allies as we go forward."

Padma asked, "Naturally you will, whom were you thinking of?"

"Griselda Marchbanks and Augusta Longbottom to start with, if we are going to retain the proper traditions those two will probably be our best guides."

Daphne interjected, "Don't forget that we also need a Royal Witch or Wizard." Now they all realised what she meant, it was the correct title of the leader of the Wizengamot.

It was Hermione's turn again, "Those two are as good as anybody, however we are also going to revamp the Hogwarts curriculum; the subject matter and the teaching of some subjects is appalling. The syllabus for both muggle studies and the history of magic are a total waste of time and the teaching of both is consistently dreadful. We also need to introduce some other important subjects such as English Language and Literature, maths, maybe a course called the Wizarding World for the muggle born and raised, possibly some more as well."

Amelia frowned, "You will have a problem with the Board of Governors."

Daphne smirked, "Allow me to introduce you to the Lady Luna Ravenclaw Lovegood head of the Most Noble and Most Ancient House of Ravenclaw; you have already met my Lord Harry James Merlin Gryffindor Hufflepuff Slytherin Black Potter.

"Have you read 'Hogwarts a History'? The Hogwarts Board of Governors are history, they are not doing the job they were originally created to do and they are interfering with thing they have no remit to become involved with."

Hermione interrupted gently and what she said startled Amelia even more, "Yes Daphne, but the actual fact is they have no remit to do anything.

"To become a Governor of 'Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry' you should after being approved by a vote of the full Hogwarts Board plus the standard supernumeraries; it will then include the Headmaster and Heads of all four Hogwarts Houses. If the vote is one hundred percent in favour, not even abstentions are acceptable, the nominated party would be invited, submit themselves to Hogwarts herself for assessment.

"I'm a muggle born witch and I have found all of this information, why does nobody in the Ministry appear to know anything about it?

"Anyway; the assessment room is a ritual room and is a part of the Headmasters suite and has not been used since Dumbledore took over; for the last twenty years it has only been used for Order of the Phoenix meetings, chaired, of course, by Bumblemore the incompetent. Whoever it was that allowed Bumblemore to run what was essentially a war from a school full of underage children, should be taken out and shot . . . not really, shooting is far too quick, something much slower and far more painful would be far more appropriate for the callus depraved pervert."

Amelia was shocked, "Lady Potter, that was a bit vicious."

Hermione held up her hand with the Merlin ring, it was glowing, "In this instance I am the Lady Merlin and this ring has told me that I am the 'First Among Equals', well apart from anything else Merlin was the last great Druid chief and this magical government claims to be representative of Merlin's teachings . . . it would be as well to remember Druid justice . . . the Wicker Man.

"The Druids did not have prisons, they would have abhorred a hell hole like Azkaban; if you were found guilty of a serious crime you were sent to justice and to Merlin justice was the Wicker Man, it is more merciful than Azkaban and more permanent. The Wicker Man would be set up in a public place and felons would remain in justice until the next solstice or equinox at which time the wicker man was burned; not very nice, but it kept the serious crime rate very low and obviously nobody reoffended. Do not concern yourself over much; we do not want you to bring back the Wicker Man." Amelia looked somewhat relieved. "But think Amelia, how many of the pure blood morons would have signed up as one of Voldemort's bully boys if the odds were high that if you were caught you were going to be burned to death in public. Also the Olympian gods, who started this all off and brought us here, approve; maybe not as a long term solution, however they appreciate that at first we need to get rid of the accumulated dross, they appreciate that some of it will have to be forced to move.

"When did I get so morbid; husband, cheer me up." So Harry kissed her until her toes curled and her eyes, blissfully, glazed over.

However all of the girls eyes had lit up as Hermione was talking and Tracey asked, "What does Hermione mean by, 'the First Among Equals'?"

Harry replied, "I don't think that this is the right time to be asking that question, simply because we don't really know the answer to that ourselves at the moment."

Daphne stirred them up, "We have been hard at it for nearly three hours, it is supposed to be Harry's birthday so let's take a break for a bit and Susan, you know which room is your aunt's so you can show your aunt her room as well as yours before she goes where ever else she needs to."

The cohort returned to the library and continued to review the files given to Harry by the goblins.

When Susan returned she told them that her aunt had gone to the Ministry, what with one thing and another they had given her rather a lot to do.

Daphne asked the couple, "So you bonded and I didn't tell you how the books said it should be done; so did you read a book or just do it?"

It would not have been possible for all of the girls to pay more attention when Hermione replied sheepishly, "We didn't read any books on the subject, although if we have any here I will add an amendment to them detailing what we did.

"Harry simply asked me if I would like to be bound to the House of Potter . . . I didn't say anything, I just kind of kissed him rather passionately, the rest, as they say, is history."

"I think," Harry said, "that this is something that Hermione really wanted without reservation, if I am not mistaken it is something that she has wanted for a long time, although I am not sure that the last bit is really important." Hermione was nodding as Harry continued, "I kind of indicated this earlier however circumstances have changed slightly and because now it seems right, so I will say it again a little differently.

"For my part I will be happy if any of you decide to bind yourself to any of the houses of which I am the head; however Hermione is the First Among Equals so it to her you must come to express your desire to be bound to a house through me."

Susan had a big smile and eyes were glowing as she said, "Hermione, I would like permission to bind myself to the House of Potter and I think that we should all try to do this without reference to any books."

Smiling widely Hermione answered, "That is a very good idea about not reading the books Susan and yes I give you all permission to ask the Lord Potter, when you are certain that you are ready.

"As an addition to my earlier temporary rule, for all of our sakes; we should try to give Harry at least two hours to recover between bindings."

Harry stood and taking Susan's hand he led her up the stairs.

**-x-**

The others continued assessing the items and information in the goblin supplied file box and Hermione had found an intriguing looking portkey to their Swiss chalet, it was a dozen or so miles outside of Geneva, so she started reading the detailed information in the relevant file.

An hour later he was back with Lady Susan Amelia Merlin Potter Hufflepuff, then they all went back to reading in the library.

All of the un-bonded girls spent some time quizzing Susan about the experience and examining her rings, Hannah was especially interested in her rings.

_Some little time later. _

"Harry."

"Yes Hermione."

"I have been reading this file about our chalet in Switzerland and by far the most interesting thing I have found is that this isn't a portkey."

All of the girls were now paying a bit more attention to the couple.

"If it's not, then what is it?"

"It doesn't appear to actually have a name, I suppose that the only thing I could call it would be a semi portable portal. It's unique because it was developed for your mum and dad, by what is now one of your companies in Australia the company is called Potters Portals; isn't that really original. If you touch it with your wand, it will create a portal that we could all walk through and come out in our chalet outside of Geneva in Switzerland. The chalet in Switzerland has a permanent portal linked to the international portal-net and of course all of our other properties and companies all over the world; Susan and I are Potters so it would possibly work for us as well.

"From what's written here neither your mum nor your dad liked portkeys, I can't say that I blame them, I don't like them either, if you use it at the Swiss end then it will bring you back here . . . it means that we can visit any of our properties, anywhere in the world, anytime we want to."

There was complete . . . thoughtful . . . silence; it lasted less than a minute.

"Do all of you girls have swimsuit's?"

Apart from the squeals there was a general cacophony of agreement from the girls however, when it died down Susan said, "My aunt bought mine and I am not going to let any of you see me in it . . . especially Harry"

Sounding concerned Parvati asked, "Is it too skimpy?"

"Skimpy! That would only encourage me, it wouldn't stop me showing him. It starts around my ankles and it even has straps under my feet, it finishes an inch below my chin, it completely covers everything in between except my hands, it's this horrible 'granny knickers pink colour' and I'm sure that it's deliberately baggy to be as unflattering as possible, it really is hideous."

All of them, Susan included, were now rolling on the floor laughing.

Hannah decided to help her friend, "I read yesterday that there are a couple of bars, restaurants and a few beachwear type shops that are only about fifty or sixty yards from the beach house in Barbados."

Hermione opined, "That information is at least fifteen years old and . . ."

Harry had a pretty good idea of what she was about to say so he interrupted her, "Let's go and try it, we can at least go and have a look."

"Should we go and change?" Parvati asked.

All of them were now in muggle clothes, so smiling Hermione said, "We're alright as we are, we can probably buy whatever we need in Hannah's shops."

Half a dozen cry's of, 'Shopping . . . we'll need money' followed by a reminder to bring their wand's and they were soon ready to give a test run to the portable portal.

**-x-**

It worked perfectly so one and a half hours later the cohort were spread between two beach front clothing shops in Barbados, the delay had been caused by Daphne deciding that she simply had to become Lady Daphne Ophelia Merlin Potter Slytherin, whilst they were passing through Switzerland.

The other seven girls had had enough time for a pretty good look around the Swiss chalet; it was set in an otherwise unoccupied valley and according to the notes Hermione had read; to a muggle appeared to be no more than a loose, unstable snow drift. Inside it was a very nicely appointed mansion with twelve bedroom suites and all of the other rooms one would expect to find in an affluent home including a library, which to several of the girls disappointment didn't appear to have any old magic books.

"The oddest thing about the place was the room containing the portal, it was enormous with sofas and comfy armchairs, there were also a lot of books here but they were all about 'Potter Industries,' companies, factories and products. The girls had just about cleared the shelves taking books that looked either interesting or useful to read, never doubt that the cohort were all for forward planning.

He had tried to ask the girls about the Swiss chalet whilst they were in one of the clothing boutiques and the politest answer he had received was, 'It was very nice, can't you see that I'm busy,' from Padma. Her twin seemed to be in raptures and on another planet, she had given a squeal of joy when she had found a large display of thongs; between her and the others the display was now nearly empty, all that the shop was left with would be too big for Millicent Bulstrode.

After just over an hour in the shops, during which time Harry had spent twenty five minutes buying himself some swimsuits, colourful shirts, patterned T shirts, brightly coloured shorts and a couple of pairs of sandals, also he had been next door to buy a divers watch, he had started looking bored.

Luna noticed this and taking his hand she called out, "We are going back to the house, we will see you either there or on the beach."

Two and a bit hours later the other seven girls, now clad in very skimpy bikinis, found Harry with Lady Luna Selene Merlin Ravenclaw Potter playing in the sea.

It was a bit odd, but Harry would ask the goblins if they knew why the Ravenclaw eagle had appeared on the ring that was on the middle finger of his right hand; he had already been going to ask about the Slytherin snake appearing there; however he wasn't the head of the Ravenclaw family. He also realised that all three girls he had bonded after Hermione had a Merlin ring, but theirs were solid platinum with Merlin's dragon raised in the same metal on the front; so Hermione was the Lady Merlin; definitely one in the eye for so called pure blood superiority.

The cohort had been playing in and out of the water for a couple of hours or so when the girls started sorting things out so they could lay in the sun and Padma decided to find a bedroom with him, he returned a while later with Lady Padma Merlin Potter Gryffindor.

Before the pair had even settled down Harry said, "I'm starving."

Tracey looked at her watch and almost panicked, "We had better get home, we missed lunch and it's nearly dinner time at home so we had better move ourselves."

Which they did.

**-x-**

The elves wouldn't have minded if they had been told where the cohort was going; after all the Potter elves all liked Barbados and it was many years since they had been there; the cohort discovered that elves could do pouting to international gold medal standard.

Having quickly been forgiven dinner turned out to be brilliant and included birthday cake for Harry, he came pretty close to death when he declared that being as how it was his birthday, ergo it was his birthday cake and he was going to eat all of the chocolate extravagance himself. He was saved by Tracey who dragged him away so that she could be bound; when the smiling pair returned the cake had been shared equally between the nine of them, all in all everyone had a good time.

Later that evening Hermione was shaking her head when they were again asked if they had discovered what 'first among equals meant,' however Harry answered, "Yes, Merlin explained it and it is nothing really significant and so I kind of forgot about it, I had been terribly worried that you were all going to be numbered, I was so relieved when I found out that it wasn't like that at all, so as I said I forgot about it. It seems to be simply that Hermione knows me best, she probably knows me better than I do, if that makes sense, so if you have any problem and I'm not around she would be the most likely one of you to know what I would think about almost anything."

If he had been paying attention he would have realised that she who was 'the first among equals', was none too happy with him, he had had unique information that he had not immediately shared with her; she would be having words about it with him later. It would be difficult to ban him to the couch, it was irrelevant that it was his house, however it had over a hundred empty bedrooms and one of the other wives would find him and take advantage of the situation, why was life so difficult.

Tracey was still snuggled into his side when she pondered, "I can't believe that with all of this other stuff, your family didn't have somewhere where muggle things worked, I reckon that your mum would at least have wanted to watch video films."

"What's a video film?" the Patil twins had asked in unison, it was also obvious that most of the other girls had no idea of what a video film was either.

Hermione realised that trying to describe a video film to someone who had no idea what a film or television was and only a vague idea about what electricity could do, would be extremely difficult, but she did agree with Tracey's supposition, so she called Zen and asked, "Do we have anywhere where muggle electronics work?"

Elves do not like to disappoint those they look after so he didn't look too happy as he answered, "The south west tower is for muggle stuffs, but the stuffs in there is fifteen years over olds and I does not knows if it still be works."

The bushy haired girl thought that they should have a look, but relatively she had had a lot of exercise, in the sea and on the beach, this afternoon and she didn't want to walk all that way, it was over a quarter of a mile, each way, "Is there an easy way for us to get there?" she asked.

Zen looked around furtively, "There is special cupboard in Master Harry's room, I wills show you alls."

Clambering to their feet the cohort followed the elf to Harry's room and into his dressing room, there was an unobtrusive door on the left hand side near the back wall, there was a small shelf to the left of the door, "You should leaves your wands here, to be no magic in muggle places."

All of them put their wands on the shelf and as instructed Harry opened the door, they were facing a room that was about ten foot square, it had a door in the far side; Zen said, "You alls goes into the room and closes the door; when yous opens the other door yous alls be in the muggle place."

Following the elf's instructions they all went into the room and closed the door behind themselves, as soon as the door closed a strange pale blue light came on and then Harry opened the far door.

Some things are surprising and they exited into a world of matt finished stainless steel and Perspex . . . they were surprised; there had been absolutely no sensation of movement.

The landing they were on was circular and about thirty foot across, descending from the ceiling was a transparent circular lift shaft with a five foot wide staircase sweeping down around it; the torus was about thirty foot diameter with a sixteen foot diameter hole in it. Excluding the lift there were only two doorways on the landing, the single one they had come out of and a large pair of double doors; so of course they went through the double doors.

The room they were in was lit by what appeared to be fluorescent panel lights as had been the hallway and the room was huge; it didn't take them long to realise that they were at the top of the south western tower and quite a few clever things were going on. Looking through the panoramic windows all of them would lay money that they were looking directly at the scene outside as it actually was at the moment, but they had flown around the outside of this tower and they knew that there were only arrow slits for windows. It only took Hermione moments to realise that with plasma screens, some wide angle cameras and a little bit of jiggery-pokery, what they were looking at could soon be arranged, probably without very much, if any, magic being used.

Because it was getting late they decided just to have a quick look around and found that they were in a muggle apartment, it was well over two thousand square feet but it only had one large bedroom; it also had a large kitchen dining room along with a television room. This was what they had originally come for but none of the remote controls would work, in fact they were all but destroyed because the batteries had been left in them for so long. After fiddling around for a while Hermione managed to get a little bit of the Sound of Music video to play but they all decided to come back when they had more time, amongst the videos, there could well be some good memories here for Harry. The only other room was a library containing what they estimated as over five thousand hard back books; although all of the books were muggle fiction. Space was still available on the shelves for probably another three thousand as well as room for more bookcases; the reading area had half a dozen comfortable looking chairs and some side tables.

Leaving the top floor they quickly went down the very elegant stairs, (they wouldn't use the lift until it had been checked,) each of the other three floors was divided into five rooms and only two on the third floor had been fitted out, they were both bedrooms with en suit bathrooms, all of the other rooms were bare.

The journey back to the main house was the reverse of the one to get to the tower and it was made without any fuss.

There had been some discussion throughout the day about having a regular meeting late every evening to decide what they were going to do the next day. Harry declared that they knew so little of the details of what was likely to happen in the morning at Gringotts the next day they couldn't even discuss it and anyway the afternoon would be totally different to the morning.

At the end of the quasi meeting, Hannah decided that she definitely wouldn't be able to sleep unless she was bound so that was also done without any fuss. Harry and all of the other girls were pleased to note that, after her bonding, Hannah's rings were exactly the same as Susan's, it could save future arguments, at least on that subject.

**-x-**

As per the night before he again had the eight girls with him as he was laying awake in his massive bed, he figured that this might well be a permanent feature of his prospective future, if it was he was all for it. Once again it was Hermione on his right hand, or should that be in his right hand? Tonight however it was Parvati who was purring in his left hand, hopefully she would be bound first thing in the morning; that would be all of the girls bound, it might well be advantageous in Gringotts tomorrow. He wondered if maybe things would settle down with the cohort after they were all bound, although all of his wives seemed to be excitedly waiting for seconds.

He was still day dreaming however; he had learned a tremendous amount today, mainly from the rings and in themselves the rings were to him really strange magical objects. The appearance of neither the Merlin clan ring nor the Potter family ring had changed since they appeared on his hands when he had bound Hermione this morning. The ring that had just appeared on the middle finger of his right hand, after he had bound Susan as the Lady Susan Amelia Merlin Potter Hufflepuff, was an entirely different caldron of cheesecake; where on earth had that expression come from, he must have caught something off of Luna.

It had added floating emblems as the different houses were tied to him, he fell asleep thinking that thanks to the rings he understood a lot more of this kind of thing, he dare not think of the girls or he would never sleep.

**-x-**

**Authors Notes;**

**One**: I have never been to Barbados, or anywhere else in the Caribbean for that matter, so all I know about the place I have learned from the internet; what with Wikipedia and Google Maps et al. Although, having experienced a lot of other places around the world, I seriously doubt that anything there is particularly cheap for anyone who isn't a local, except maybe Rum . . . now that's not a bad idea, although not for this story.

**Two**: Warning! In the next chapter the cohort will take orphans into their home, these unfortunate humans are currently classified by current wizarding world laws as chattels. As such Harry already totally owns them so he doesn't need to adopt them; this is not intended to be a nice situation, it is intended to show the state of the callous society the pure blood bigots have created


	3. Chapter 3

**Disclaimer;** J. K. Rowling owns the rights to Harry Potter, she deserves them for the first five brilliant books she wrote; the last two excuses play practically no part in my personal view of Harry Potter's world; or this story.

**Day 03**

_**It is Sunday the first of August and the time is approximately 06.15. **_

He awoke thinking, 'what a day this promises to be,' and it started as soon as Parvati realised that he was awake; she was not noted as an early riser but it seemed as if she had decided before he even woke up that she wished to be bound and nobody was going to stop her. She had dragged him to her room, (she must have woken up all of the other girls on the way, at least they seemed to all be giggling as his bedroom door closed behind them,) and much to her delight she was bound, as Lady Parvati Merlin Potter Gryffindor, the same as her twin.

None of the cohort had any illusions that today was going to be pleasant; breakfast was quite quiet as the group discussed what they thought might happen with the 'wills' and afterwards with the live chattels; to the muggle raised that sounded horrible. It almost degraded people to the level of battery hens and neither Harry nor Hermione had any reasonable idea as to what they were going to do with them, they would find a solution or Daphne might, her solution would no doubt be unpleasant, to say the least.

He was pondering this quietly with a few of the girls when Daphne seemed to get frustrated with them and proving their suspicions said, "Hermione, Harry, you seem to be forgetting that these are the same people who created and supported the system which placed them in the predicament they now find themselves lumbered with. It was designed with the idea of, 'putting in their place,' the mixed blood and the muggleborn who they believed to be below their pureblood dignity, my thought is up their . . . noses . . . sideways.

"We must act with authority, so today Hermione is the Lady Merlin and we will all call her that when we refer to her, she will sit at your right hand and I will sit at your left, we two are your main advisors so this should not be changed. We should all refer to ourselves and each other by our correct titles and because there will be two of each in the room the Ladies Gryffindor and Hufflepuff will have their given names added, Harry is the Lord Potter Merlin . . . are there any questions so far?"

She waited a couple of minutes, there were no questions so she continued, "We do not know where this meeting will take place so it is not possible to plan further seating details; I will attempt to assess the situation when we find out exactly what we have to deal with, I am still young but this Slytherin ring is a work of pure genius; if they try anything they will wonder what hit them.

"Right, now we will all go upstairs and put on our finest robes, apart from anything else we are after making an impression and make sure that you have your wands and your money bags. I hope that we will be early enough to visit Merlin's vault; let's move angels."

Going up the stairs Tracey said mainly to Hermione, "'Harry's Angels', I like that." The purebloods couldn't understand what the pair were giggling at, even more confusing for them was that Harry seemed to be trying very hard not to join them.

**-x-**

It was seven forty five when they arrived at the bank and the goblins who met them decided that there was time so they set off to visit the deepest, oldest vaults. In a good way it turned out to be somewhat different to what they all had envisioned; there were also all of the founders vaults to visit. The Potter and the Black family vaults were in a different section of the tunnel system; they would have to be visited another day.

One thing they were all quite sure of was that at the moment they really had enough to be going on with.

The only thing any of them removed from the five vaults was staves; Harry had Merlin's and after assurances from both of their rings Hermione had Morgana's, apparently modern male bias had painted her in a far worse light than she deserved. All of the founders vaults contained more than one staff so the only person who was without one was Tracey who had become Lady Black, Hermione's Merlin ring told her to give Tracey Morgana's staff, she and Harry were to go to the back of Merlin's vault and search for another.

Harry had to help Hermione from the vault, she was carrying a finely carved ivory staff with mithril _(elven silver)_ bands and it was glowing with barely suppressed power.

The others, including the goblins, were all shocked and Susan whispered, "It's so beautiful, what is it?"

Hermione had tears in her eyes and she still couldn't speak so Harry said reverently, "It is over twelve thousand years old and it was the staff of Galadriel the greatest of the elven queens, to touch it without her permission is death, at the moment I am the only other person who has permission."

The seven other witches and all of the goblins who were present knelt before her and Susan said, "Truly the first amongst equals, but what should we now call you?"

"For the present I am to be called the Lady Merlin and within a week I will change my name; I would prefer to be called the Lady Hermione the staff and the rings want me to call myself the Lady of Galadriel, the two staves and two rings are currently debating what Harry should be called.

"You should all stand up, we have no time now but I will tell you much, much more when we get home."

All of the vault doors had been closed so they all climbed into the carts and they set off towards the surface; however the cart took them on a much shorter journey, to a short carpeted corridor which led to Goldfist's office.

The goblin leader was going to kneel before Hermione but she said, "You are our friend and you have no need to bow before us."

Goldfist said, "I thank you for the honour you show us and I never thought that I would have the good fortune to actually see Galadriel, she is even more beautiful than her description and I thank you for showing her to me before we go to read the 'wills'."

**-x-**

_**Interlude: **__The reading of 'wills has been done in HP fan fiction, by myself and others, dozens, if not hundreds of times and so the reading of the 'wills' has been condensed to the bits which are relevant to this story; all of the 'I Herbert Strobbings being of flatulent behind . . . etc., etc., has been removed and the bequests of the couples have been unified. _

**-x-**

Eighteen of them moved out of Goldfist's office and a short way along the corridor into a large conference room, there were ten people already in the room including four aurors who were stood one near each of the corners and they all acknowledged Goldfist. He moved to the front of the room and his guards also spread themselves around the room, the cohort took the seats which appeared to have been reserved for them near the head of the very large elliptical table at which everyone else was sitting. Between the nine of them they recognised all of the other people sat around the table and the reason for the presence of some of them was not immediately apparent.

This was about to be made clear by Goldfist who it appeared was not very happy, abruptly he started, "I am disgusted to say that we are here today to execute five 'wills', I will list them by age, the most recent first:

"Lord Sirius Orion Black, delayed just over one year.

"Lady Lilly Gwenhwyfar Potter, delayed sixteen years next Halloween. _(Guinevere)_

"Lord James Henry Potter, also delayed sixteen years next Halloween.

"Lady Mair Lowri Potter, delayed sixteen years yesterday. _(Mary Laura)_

"Lord Henry Emrys Potter, also delayed sixteen years yesterday.

"The only person in the room who is likely to recognise the last two names on the list is Mistress McGonagall, they were the parents of Lord James Henry Potter, therefore the grandparents of the current Lord Potter.

"These 'wills' should have been read sixteen years ago; the 'wills' of Lord James and Lady Lilly Potter should have been read fifteen and a half years ago . . . why were they not?

"For the same reason that the 'will' of the Previous Lord Black was not read; some of you were either too young or deliberately kept ignorant to be able to understand or do anything about it, you are not at fault. The rest of you just sat there like sheep and allowed a demented old fool to walk all over you; not one of you complained to the Department of Magical Law Enforcement, you simply allowed a self serving, bigoted old idiot to break the law and ruin peoples lives'.

"By your own rules goblins are not even allowed to complain when wizards break the law in matters such as these.

"You do not deserve Lord Harry Potter Merlin."

None of those present, apart from the cohort, had previously met the goblin leader, the way that he and Amelia Bones were glaring at the rest, now most of them wished that they still hadn't.

Goldfist continued, "There were only two bequests from the 'wills' of Lady Mair and Lord Henry Potter apart from the bulk of their estates being passed to their only son Lord James Henry Potter; both of the those named individuals have subsequently died without issue. Therefore the entire estates' of the Lady Mair and Lord Henry Potter is deemed to have passed to their eldest son Lord James Henry Potter.

"Things are not quite as bad for the estates of Lord James and Lady Lilly Potter, we have two of the eleven beneficiaries here today, however none of the others have survived.

"Professor Minerva McGonagall James Potter has left you twenty five thousand Galleons in the hope that you will use some of it to ensure that Gryffindor House has excellent brooms for Quidditch." Minerva looked livid her lions could have had the best racing brooms for years, she did however realise that it was partly her own fault for not forcing the reading of these 'wills', especially after Harry came to Hogwarts.

The 'will' reading continued, "Mme Amelia Bones you have also been bequeathed twenty five thousand Galleons, the 'will' makes it clear that this will be a complete surprise to you. This is annotated as being to keep yourself and your family safe, had these 'wills' been read at the correct time it is highly likely that the Lady Susan Hufflepuff would still have her parents. _(Three of the cohort were comforting Susan.)_

"I trust that you are all getting some idea of what Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore has cost both you and the wizarding world, both of you ladies were named, amongst others, as possible guardians for Lord Potter. The annotation against the Dursleys was, 'under no circumstances' should our son be left with this moronic pair of individuals.

"As well as the residue of his parents estate, it might please you to know that the entirety of Albus Dumbledore's estate has been sequestered and has become forfeit and transferred to Lord Potter. His cohort will be pleased to know that this estate contains a great many books, most of which are extremely old and rare.

"Dumbledore had two main partners in his crimes against Lord Potter they were Severus Snape and Cornelius Oswald Fudge, the estates of both of these individuals has been seized and dispersed in the same manner.

"For those of you who are not aware, all three of these individuals have been sent to Zeus for assessment, I was prepared to give them goblin justice, however I was reassured when I was told that, 'their punishment might well become the stuff of legend'." Goblin justice was not something anyone in their right mind would normally ask for but it seems that it would be preferable to that offered by Zeus.

"We will now take a short recess prior to the reading of the final 'will'."

Everyone stood whilst the goblin leader left with four of his guards, the four remaining goblin guards and the cohort were the only ones who understood why the goblin leader had bowed respectfully to Hermione on his way out, she had acknowledged it with a nod of her head.

The others were about to find out.

**-x-**

It was a foregone conclusion that given half a chance Amelia would head straight for her niece Susan, this she did and it was fine.

The Tonks', led by their daughter seemed to be coming to speak with Harry somewhere in the middle of the room, Remus Lupin was taking a similar course, this was also fine.

The problem was Professor McGonagall, she had waited a minute or so for her favourite student to come to her but when Hermione didn't move she became somewhat annoyed and started heading in the girl's direction, she was intercepted by Daphne, Luna and the Patil twins.

Minerva tried to bluster, "I wish to speak to Miss Granger."

Daphne didn't bat an eyelid, "There is no Miss Granger here, if however you wish to speak to the Lady Merlin, for your safety you require a warning."

Professor McGonagall was becoming more annoyed, "Miss Greengrass, I can see Miss Granger and I am certain she will not hurt me."

Padma rolled her eyes, "You have just insulted the Lady Daphne Slytherin, simply because you are not conversant with all of the facts; so before you speak and do it again I am the Lady Padma Gryffindor; **help us please my Lord Merlin**."

The last six words had been said loudly, the affect of them was to totally silence the room.

Harry looked at Amelia and said, "I require every one of you who did not know our secrets when you entered this room to take a vow not to reveal them until next Friday."

Amelia started to mutter about forcing people to take secrecy vows when Hermione stood and lifted a brightly shining Galadriel, as she did Andromeda Tonks fell to her knees and she was quickly followed by all of the others not of the cohort, the staff glowed brighter and Hermione said, "It is not a problem my Lord Merlin, it is done and you may all rise."

As they stood Andromeda said, "Is that what I think it is?"

It was Hermione's turn to roll her eyes saying, "This is the staff of Galadriel, the greatest of the elven queens and she is allowing me to use her and yes she is extremely sentient; and Professor McGonagall what do you require of me?"

The headmistress, _(although she didn't know it yet)_, was flummoxed as she realised that there was so much that she didn't know, she didn't even know where to start, she muttered, "I could murder a cup of tea."

A cup of tea appeared floating about three foot off the ground and two foot in front of her, it looked and smelt exactly as she liked it, she took the tea and tasted it, it was perfect, then Hermione said, "Too much has happened in the last few days, also so much is happening it is difficult to even begin to try to explain it, I would suggest that you wait until at least next week before you even try to ask questions, things will gradually become clearer." Deciding to stop her favourite professor from worrying too much, she added, "Things will be much better, you have heard that Dumbledore and Snape are both gone and you can be head of the school if you wish to be . . ."

At this moment two goblins entered and one said, "Chief Goldfist is returning." Everybody made their way back to their seats.

Harry's conversation with the Tonks' had centred around him becoming the head of the Black family and the mother and daughter being readmitted to it, this they both wanted to do.

Lupin having made a vague query as to Harry's health, started trying to pump Harry for information as to his whereabouts and what he had been doing. Not answering any of his questions and not very politely telling the werewolf to go back to worshiping Bumblemore and to keep away from him and then he turned around leaving Lupin standing there, he was back with Hermione by the time the goblins returned.

Everyone having retaken their place Goldfist restarted, "We now come the 'will' of Lord Sirius Orion Black.

"To Professor McGonagall; another twenty thousand galleons for brooms, however the disposition of this is somewhat different, it is for new brooms for first year flying lessons as well as two sets of brooms only to be used for Quidditch matches. There are a set of rules, they are very reasonable, and I will pass you a copy, as much as anything else they cover the replacement of the brooms when they start to get old.

"Remus Lupin, I will read this as it is written; 'Remus you have kind of been my friend for a great many years, however since I escaped Azkaban I have noticed that you have become very much Dumbledore's man and are not so concerned with my or more importantly, Harry's welfare. After due consideration I have reduced the half a million galleons I was previously going to leave you, to twenty five thousand galleons; our school friendship still counts for something'.

"Mrs Andromeda Tonks; I request that Harry consults with you, as to whether you wish to be reinstated into the Black family, I have taken the liberty of preparing the paperwork and all it requires is your and his signatures to make it legal. Notwithstanding your decision I leave to you the sum of five hundred thousand galleons, you should not have to worry about money again.

"I have been instructed that for my own safety I am to apologise before I read out the next name, Miss Nymphadora Tonks; the same offer of reinstatement to the Black family has been made to you, the only difference is the money. Please bear in mind that I am only reading this out Sirius Black has written; I have realised for most of my life that young girls are not to be trusted with money, _(Tonks was starting to get wound up,)_ therefore I have only left you one million galleons as opposed to two."

After Tonks had been picked up off the floor where she had fallen after being told of the bequest, Goldfist continued, "Everything else I leave to my godson Harry James Potter, all of the shares, property, titles, oh yes and money.

"That concludes the reading of the 'wills'; I do not intend telling you what Lord Potter Merlin has received, either from his godfather or from his parents, if he wishes anyone to know, he will tell you.

"Are there any questions?"

Immediately Harry asked, "We have already talked about it, so, would it be possible to sign the reinstatement documents for the Tonks Ladies at this time?"

The goblin leader agreed to Harry's request and the paperwork was duly signed, to the exuberantly expressed delight of both of the Tonks women, Amelia was enough of a realist to understand that Auror Tonks no longer needed to put her life on the line for money.

A couple of the Potter elves had been called to take the mountain of paperwork, they had acquired that morning, back to the Pottery to be assimilated some time later. Tracey's remark to Hermione that it looked like a computer would be very useful had been noted and agreed with; they needed to get the South West tower sorted out. Harry had already told Hermione that Tonks the younger had suggested that Harrods had people who could probably sort out all of their problems with the South West tower and she had given him the floo address.

It was time for lunch so the cohort, Mr and Mrs Tonks and Professor McGonagall all went to a private dining room where they were served lunch by the Potter elves; the food was first rate and they talked of everything in general. Nothing of any real consequence was discussed until it was time for Professor McGonagall and the cohort to go to their next meeting.

**-x-**

On their way to the meeting they were joined by Amelia Bones with a single auror escort, they were only slightly surprised to discover that the escorting auror was Tonks, she was now wearing the uniform of a senior auror.

The subterranean hall where their next meeting was being held was enormous, it needed to be because there were about one hundred and sixty human chattels to assess, there were a couple of dozen goblin guards spread around the walls and they still hated that name . . . chattels yuk.

With Susan and Hannah directing them the preschool children were moved to the back of the room to play, there were twenty six of them; the school age children were put there to look after them, there were twenty three of them.

It had been too good to last and Pansy stood, having dragged along Millicent and said, "Greengrass, Davis what are you two blood traitors doing here?"

You could feel the silence that followed and in it you could feel the tension rising, knowing the potential for violence Amelia loudly said, "Wait! They all deserve at least a little explanation, please allow me."

Hermione restrained Galadriel and nodded, Amelia continued, "As a lot of you already know I am Amelia Bones the Director of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement; listen carefully and take heed because what I am going to tell you is not open for debate.

"You are chattels, your husband or your head of family has been found to be either a death eater or a collaborator and the family has been declared forfeit, you have no name, so in some eyes you are a step below a muggleborn. Harry Potter, who you will henceforth refer to as the Lord Potter Merlin, has the power of life and death over you and only he can either give you a name or he can allow another to do the same."

Interrupting, Pansy shouted, "That's a load of crap." there was a soft 'pfft' and Pansy disappeared.

Millicent said quietly, "Mme Bones, please where did Pansy go?"

It was doubtful if the interest in the answer could have been more intense as Daphne stood, "For your information I am the Lady Slytherin, we do not have the time or the patience to be meek and forgiving and Pansy was behaving as she has always behaved, none of us detected any sign of remorse in her so she has been sent to Hades."

There was a murmuring as Daphne sat down however it quietened as Mme Bones stood back up, "What just happened is perfectly legal as most of you should know, after all, you all either wrote these rules or you condoned them, the only thing left for you to do now is to live with what you have created." Amelia sat back off to the side next to Minerva and the pair started talking quietly.

Nervously Harry stood, "As you have been told, I am the Lord Potter Merlin. I don't like what has happened however it is the way the bigoted purebloods have made the system; so at the moment I am bound by it, so I am your Lord and master, unfortunately there is very little I can do about it. The easiest thing for me to do would be to let you all go free, easy for me but I don't think that it would be for you, if you consider the situation you find yourselves in:

"You have no money.

"No wand.

"No name.

"And nowhere to live.

"It would likely be something of a problem for at least the majority of you.

"On the other hand there is, or will be once we hopefully get things sorted out, quite a lot that you can do about your situation, the decision whether or not to co-operate with what we will be trying to do will be yours. Pansy has shown us all one solution which for us is relatively easy and permanent, let's try not to provoke that again and we will all probably be a lot happier.

"The Lady Black will sit here and try to answer any questions you might have, I say try because we are about to have a discussion as to what we can possibly do with you all, if any of you have any reasonable ideas please tell Lady Black.

"Thank you for listening."

Harry was shaking like a leaf when he sat back down and he was comforted by two girls.

First Daphne whispered, "You did very well but I think that you went a bit easy on them."

Next Hermione whispered, "Personally I think that you did brilliantly, but Galadriel thinks that you should have wound them up so that you could kill a few."

Harry had his whisper, "She's like the Queen of Hearts, every second sentence is off with his head."

As clear as a bell a beautiful voice sounded in all three heads, "Ooh I would like her, where can I meet her?" Both Daphne and Harry were extremely glad that it was Hermione who had to explain to her extremely violent, wayward staff that the Queen of Hearts was a fictional character from a children's story book. _(Apparently when she had explained it, her staff complemented her for teaching the children properly.)_

The three had been whispering because Tracey had been receiving apologies from first Millicent and then from Pansy's mother; she had told them that her daughter's attitude gradually became more and more extreme the longer she mixed with Draco; none of them found this difficult to believe.

**-x-**

It had been a gruelling afternoon, eventually they had separated out all of the adults with children, there were forty nine children twenty six of whom were below school age; four, three girls and one boy, aged three and four, had lost both of their parents. The twenty three school age children divided into five boys and eighteen girls, the girls divided into all years, whereas the boys were confined to the lower three years.

Fundamentally there were twenty five families without the fathers.

It was a lot of work for the three but Tracey, Hermione and Harry knew how lucky they were that they were able, with the aid of their new staves to judge the honesty and moral stance of the people they concentrated on.

Their discussion, as to what to do with these families, had been going around in circles when, Padma told them that she had just been informed by her Gryffindor staff that the current school only used a third of the castle, it was roughly half of what they knew about. There was a huge hidden section of the castle, the location of which had been lost for over nine hundred years; there would be more than enough room for all of these families to live there; if they could be trusted.

The easiest decision they made was to take the four orphans into the Potter household, none of the cohort had any doubt whatsoever that Harry would do this. When Amelia, in her official capacity, questioned who would be responsible for them a very emotional Hannah told her that they would easily sort that out later, there could well be a fight for the honour.

At this point Daphne informed them that amongst the other chattels were eighty three elves and a fair few of those were trained as nannies these could be tasked by the Lord Merlin to look after the children, wherever they chose to live.

Some order of assessing the families had to be found and Hermione had suggested that they worked through them starting with the ones with the most children first; it would help settle the children, it was simple, it was logical, so they did it.

Neither the first two families assessed, _(both with four children)_, nor the next two _(both with three children)_, were any problem; neither the wives nor any of the children had been aware of their family head having been involved with the machinations of the dark lord.

First off they would go to live in the Hogwarts castle where Infant and Primary schooling would be established for the children under eleven years old. This would be totally funded by Harry and it would be called the 'Hogwarts Founders Pre School' also it would be completely separate from Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.

The consensus was that Luna put it best; the fifth mother interviewed 'had a bad case of the muddleups,' she hadn't known what her husband had been doing and was not particularly dark but she firmly believed in blood purity, her attitude needed to be modified, rapidly.

Hermione looked at her, "Good afternoon Chloe no name. My parents are dentists which makes me a muggleborn witch; my full name is the Lady Hermione Jane Merlin Galadriel Potter but I am not really any different to what I was a week ago, I find myself in this position because of my attitude and actions . . . how about you?

"Your Lord and master, Lord Harry James Merlin Gryffindor Hufflepuff Ravenclaw Slytherin Black Potter had a first generation witch as a mother although his father was what you would have called a pureblood, do the facts of his mother's birth really make any difference?

"We will give you a few minutes and I respectfully request that you carefully consider your prejudices."

There was a fairly long delay whilst Chloe considered what Hermione had said and showing a reasonable degree of intelligence she said, "It makes rather a mockery of what I have always believed, I recognise several young ladies in your group, they are what I would call pure blood and if I had any I would lay money on the fact that that fact has nothing to do with them being here.

"Obviously I now see the error in my previous thinking, however for me to change will not be instantaneous as it will not be easy; I can only promise you that I will try as hard as I can."

Tracey, Hermione and Harry could read the sincerity in her words and he said, "Ok, we will accept your promise and hope that you can succeed in a reasonable time, if you can't I have no idea what we can do with you short of feeding you to the giant squid." He had finished with a grin."

"Harry!" Luna said in an admonishing tone, "You know that the giant squid only likes virgins and Chloe can't be a virgin, she has three children." What had become a sweet smile suddenly became an evil leer as she added. "Although we could feed her to the Acromantulas, they're not nearly as fussy as the squid." Luna was smiling sweetly again; Chloe was totally confused . . . Luna had won again. Padma helped Chloe back to her children, a bit later on she would explain to her that Luna had only been pulling her leg . . . she hoped.

The interviews they were conducting were open, so everybody could clearly hear what was being said, it was thought that Hermione's statement and Harry's admonishment by Luna had a lot to do with how easily the rest of the interviews had gone. The big question for them was still, 'what to do with all of the currently unattached, of age females,' there were one hundred and twenty one of them; thirty five of whom had never been married.

These women ranged in age from seventeen (Millicent Bulstrode,) to . . . well a woman never discloses her age, however the cohort Ladies identified forty two who were over a hundred; another sixteen were over eighty, strangely enough there then seemed to be a gap down to those under forty.

It wouldn't please these stuck up pureblood witches to know it but they would have to swear at least two oaths, the first to ensure their loyalty to the clan Potter and the second to guarantee their general behaviour. First they would be given a copy of both of the oaths they would have to swear and they would be allowed an hour to decide whether or not they would comply; failure to comply would see them placed in the low security wing of Azkaban.

As Daphne kept telling the cohort, 'they were responsible for these laws'.

The easiest decision for placement was Millicent Bulstrode, after swearing the oaths, she would go along with the other school age children to Hogwarts for her final year; another decision would have to be made for her at the end of the coming school year.

Next in line were the fifty eight who were over eighty years old, they were to be sent to Scalby Mills Manor, it was an enormous old house (one hundred and four bedroom suites), which was on the Yorkshire coast and it was under the Fidelius Charm. Elves would maintain the property and feed them, they would be responsible for the cleaning of both themselves and their environment, it should be very interesting; most of these old dragons had never done a day's work in their life and they wouldn't have their wands. The elves weren't charged with keeping the peace between their charges, they would however report all aggressive and disruptive behaviour, the perpetrators would be sent to Azkaban for a few weeks. The house also had an enormous library from which all of the magic books had been removed and replaced with a comprehensive selection of both muggle and magical fiction.

This had left them with the sixty females who were under forty.

At Daphne's request, Hannah, Susan and the Patil twins had started interviewing the thirty four who had never been married, she had muttered something about concubines and companions. Companions were one thing but the four believed that Harry would be horrified at the thought of concubines, especially if it wasn't completely voluntary on the girl's behalf, being as how they were his property he would never be sure that this was the case.

So the four girls decided between themselves that unless one of the girls was exceptionally beautiful, had a nice personality and also seemed to want to become Harry's concubine, none of these girls would be offered to Harry as one.

Having decided this things would be a lot simpler, they were now going to be interviewing for companions and the criteria for companions was somewhat different; the truth was that none of the four really wanted a companion; they had their friends in the cohort.

So they were going through the motions of weeding out the girls who they didn't think had the right personality or attitude, they would all have to live with them around, ultimately each of the cohort would choose their own Companion.

After several hours when eventually fifteen girls had been sorted out as possibilities for final interviews Daphne took the idea to Hermione, Tracey and Luna it was the first time these three girls had heard about it. Tracey was quite reticent, whereas both Hermione and Luna rejected the idea completely; Hermione had voiced the thought that she was already living with seven of her friend what on earth did she need with a companion? Six of the other seven girls immediately agreed with her, Daphne thought about it for less than thirty seconds before turning to Luna and apologising for having had a brain fart; Harry had also been listening so there were nine of them incapacitated by laughter.

Minerva and Amelia had also been discussing these sixty women, Minerva was pretty well informed on how the majority of them had done in their OWL's and NEWT's, generally it was not very well. Also Amelia was aware that over a hundred people had disappeared from the Ministry and quite a few from the administration side of St Mungo's Hospital as well. In the middle of their debate Hermione reminded them that Harry had reminded her that at the moment none of these witches had a wand, so they could they neither _Apparate_ nor curse each other, this currently made them easier to control. Amelia and Minerva were rapidly realising that being pampered pureblood household ornaments didn't actually make them at all useful for anything . . . well . . . useful.

As the time approached five it was obvious that Harry was getting fed up so after he had talked quietly to several of the cohort he sent all sixty witches to a virtually identical manor near Boulby, about twenty miles up the Yorkshire coast from Scalby Mills. His statement that all of the important people had been taken care of and if anybody ever had a reasonable ideas of what to do about the other riff raff, even if it was only some of them, he would be prepared to listen to them; went down about as well as the cohort thought it would.

**-x-**

When the cohort arrived back at the Pottery, it seemed like they had acquired some extra elves in addition to the four orphans these were: Natalie who was four, Emily who was also four, Lauren who was three and Benjamin who was also three.

All four children were extremely lovable and in a whisper which everybody could hear Natalie asked Emile, "Is he Harry Potter cos he looks handsmum like my poster?"

"He looks like mine as well, he's cute, ask him." Was whispered back, just as loudly.

"I'm frykind to, let's send Ben, he's a boy." The last three words sounded more like an affliction than an indication of gender.

Eight witches were having a terrible time trying to suppress their giggles, Harry however crouched down and said to the children, "Hi I'm Harry Potter."

At this the two little witches became extremely shy and were both trying to hide behind Ben, being as how Ben was at least four inches shorter than either of the two girls, they weren't very successful.

Lauren had no such inhibitions, she ran to him and kissed him on the cheek. Harry picked the tiny witch up and smiling at her he asked, "Would you like to go to the beach?"

"Yes please . . . watts is the beach." She had her arms around his neck and she had no intention of letting go.

All of the witches were looking at him dreamily and he asked, "Hannah whilst I sort out the elves will you explain to Lauren what the beach is and get some of the other girls help to get all four of them ready to go." It was a struggle that involved repeated promises that she would be returned to finally prise Lauren away from Harry's neck.

"Zen, what's with all of these new elves?" Harry asked.

"They is coming cos we is needs more helps for yous is alls staying here and for the littlest ones."

Having sorted through what Zen had told him, Harry said, "We are going to Barbados, after yesterday I know that some of you will want to come as well, do you pop there?" this was confirmed by Zen.

Just as they were about to leave one of the new elves came up to them and told them that Amelia Bones was on the floo asking for them, Susan went and collected her and dragged a very confused Amelia with them to Barbados via Switzerland.

Having reached the house in Barbados Amelia was about to lay into Harry and Susan when she cut her aunt off, "We have four young children here and apart from having just lost their parents they have never been to the beach; so we are going shopping." Susan had hold of her aunt's arm and she hadn't stopped walking whilst she was talking, she knew that what she had just said would have confused her aunt even more, but her aunt wasn't in charge here they were and auntie would just have to get used to it.

Having just reached the shops Harry had Lauren hanging around his neck again, he and Hermione were buying her beachwear and toys whilst the other three young ones each had two of the cohort doing the same for them.

Susan led _(actually that should be pulled)_ her aunt into one of the shops and started trying to get her to try on some brightly coloured, lighter weight, clothes, "Just what, in the name of Hades, do you think you are doing?" Amelia hadn't calmed down very much.

Her niece smiled, "Well I'm going to the beach with the rest of my family and I thought that you might like to come with us, but what you are wearing is not really suitable for the beach in Barbados and keep our friend Hades out of this."

Amelia looked gobsmacked, "We're in Barbados?" she squeaked, "But it only took seconds."

"It only took as long as it did because we had to come via Switzerland." Susan intended getting her aunt sitting on the beach, with a cold drink before she let her get herself together.

**-x-**

Successes, Amelia Bones was relaxed, drinking a fruit juice cocktail, wearing lightweight colourful clothes and sitting on the Potters private beach in Barbados, under the beach umbrella sitting at the table with her were Hermione, Daphne and her niece Susan, who had a big grin because she had most definitely won.

She just knew that they were waiting for her to say something stupid, so she tried for innocuous instead, "It's nice here, is it always like this?"

Hermione had done her reading, "It's usually like this but it rains quite often, the rain is usually quite warm and it doesn't normally last long, so yes, it's nice here."

The Head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement was getting herself together, "So the second thing we used was a portal, what was the first thing we used?"

Daphne answered her, "You are correct in that for the second part of the journey we used a portal, the first thing we used does not have a name because it is totally unique; it's kind of like a reusable portkey but the destinations are fixed, both ends and it can only be operated by a Potter. So what was it you wanted to see us about?"

She had been neatly brushed off by a seventeen year old girl, she blushed, "It was just that you were a bit short with everyone at the end of the meeting this afternoon."

Hermione took over, "We were getting nowhere and quite frankly neither Harry nor I are amused to be lumbered with a load of useless prima donnas, they are now split between two houses that used to belong to the Crabbe and Goyle families. Both houses are under the _Fidelius_ and tomorrow I will get Harry to make you the secret keeper for both houses and you can have all of them for your own private collection and woe betide you if anything untoward comes from any of them."

Daphne and Hermione stood in unison and peeled off their wraps revealing skimpy bikinis and trotted away to play with the orphans.

Before her aunt could say anything Susan said, "Harry and Hermione aren't like most other people and we are all becoming the same, Harry just wants a peaceful life; he would be perfectly happy here with just Hermione, I'm sure that the rest of us being here is as much for company for her as it is for him. He has given each of us free access to his accounts, if any one of us wants anything we can just go and buy it, when one of us asked Goldfist how much we could spend, he said that if Harry didn't already own it we could buy the Daily Prophet and he wouldn't notice the money.

"Don't forget either that Harry is also an orphan and these little ones mean more to him than just about anyone who isn't on this beach." Susan stood and took off her wrap revealing her own skimpy bikini and trotted off to join in the games.

Amelia sat semi stunned for a few of minutes; at least ninety nine percent of the people she had ever dealt with over the years wanted power or control or both; her niece and her cohort had it all in spades and all they wanted was to be left in peace. None of them were naive enough to believe that this could ever happen without the British wizarding society becoming a fairer, less prejudiced and more democratic place; although it would not be too difficult for them to up and simply disappear, leaving Britain to get on with it.

An elf had just brought her a drink so she asked the elf to bring her something to make notes whilst she was thinking; the elf brought her a ball point pen and a reporter's note pad, at least that is what was printed on the cover, when she had finally worked out how to use the retractable ball point pen she started thinking.

Traditionally there had always been fifty one votes in the Wizengamot; the one odd vote was the Royal Witch or Wizard.

Five votes were the Minister of Magic, the Director of the DMLE along with three others from the ministry selected by the Minister.

Five votes were the heirs of Merlin and the four Hogwarts founders, to the best of her knowledge these votes hadn't been cast for over three hundred years, it could well be a lot more; restricted information . . . why? The only obvious reason she could think of was that the titles were in a block that didn't conform to the Ministry line, so the information was with held. The Olympian gods and the goblins had pinned most of the titles to the Potters who served law and order, always trying to make the Ministry do the same.

I need to talk to the goblins about other things like this.

So someone was in for a surprise on Wednesday.

Goldfist had told her that in total the cohort controlled twenty four votes in the Wizengamot; this type of goblin information was always accurate.

She also knew that Harry's best male friend was Neville Longbottom and at least some of the cohort had been speaking to him, he held three votes . . . did he know?

She would make sure that he did.

Earlier today she had been speaking with several of the more politically aware members of the cohort and they had made it perfectly clear that they intended putting people in place to do the job they wanted done and then leaving them to get on with it. If there was a serious problem in the future they would be forced to come back and then basically it would be a case of god help whosoever it was causing the problem.

If Augusta Longbottom could be persuaded to become the Royal Witch then they could keep the proper traditions, throw out the pureblood bias for everything, restrictive blood status for everything, discriminatory laws and needless importation restrictions.

Flipping heck . . . there's almost nothing left . . . a new beginning?

Today for the first time she had used a portal and now she knew why all of the International groups would only come to Switzerland, she was going to totally ignore the device they had used to get to Switzerland; she would do something useful and spend the time making portals legal.

She had blanched when Harry had told her that he wanted to import some magic carpets, instead of reacting she had asked him why, she had thought it a bit strange when he had asked Susan to show her the astronomy tower. She must have walked two miles through the castle as well as up and then down four hundred feet, the view from the top was superb, but it also gave her an excellent idea of just how big his castle was and when Susan said, 'imagine doing this if you were pregnant,' she had a really good idea why he wanted magic carpets. She had recently ridden on a modern magic carpet in Belgium, the invisibility and the weather protection charms were excellent, it was supposedly the broom manufactures who were the cause of the problem; in reality it was Lucius Malfoy who had had a lot of their shares, that would soon be undone. Malfoy was gone so Harry had the shares and he didn't care, to him practicality was more important than profit; she actually didn't think that it would make any significant difference to broom sales.

Another of their big things was that Ministry employment would have to be on merit, Luna had said it to her, the girl was only sixteen and what she said was so blindingly obvious. 'If through cronyism you employed someone to do a job they weren't capable of doing then the job didn't get done, when the majority were employed this way then the system didn't work.'

Well, she had been making her own lists of competent people for years, the time was rapidly approaching when she would use them, it was quite fortuitous that Harry had caused a clear out, they now had the room to really make some changes. She was blessing the ministry for being its own worst enemy, all appointments and staff reallocations, above the most basic levels, had to be approved by either the Minister or the Senior Undersecretary; both of the previous incumbents were permanently indisposed.

She had better get some trustworthy people together and rapidly and create a new Ministry senior staff structure, keeping in mind the direction she knew that they would be moving in, in the near future; who should be the new Senior Undersecretary. She knew that it was a vital position and an important question to ponder, if she thought that she could get away with it she would ask the Lady Slytherin to do it, but she probably wouldn't want it anyway; maybe she knew somebody.

Her ruminations were brought to an abrupt halt by the cohort and the orphans literally picking her up and carrying her into the house for dinner, her train of thought had been derailed and she was now thinking about this house. It had no front, well that wasn't quite right, the whole of the front was glass and it somehow folded into itself and disappeared; Tracey and Hannah had told her that it was a muggle thing to bring the beautiful scenery into the house with you.

She had been told and now there were loud alarm bells sounding in her head; they didn't teach muggle studies at Hogwarts, what they taught was an out of date, sanitised version of how the truly inferior purebloods would like the rest of the world to be. Harry had said it to her, this was extremely dangerous, the average member of the magical community had absolutely no idea of how ninety nine point nine percent of the world operated; ultimately if not rectified it would be the end of them as a society.

She could see it in this place, it was magical but she had been assured by those of the cohort who knew that if a muggle were to come in here it would not appear to be strange and they could operate. Apparently there was a lot more to it though, even if a magical person became used to living here it would only provide about thirty percent of what they would need to really survive in the muggle world; a lot of teaching needed to be done.

She came out of her reverie long enough to say, "I asked the other day who should be the next Minister of Magic and we decided that it should be me; I have given the matter a lot of thought and the only person to head the Wizengamot is Augusta Longbottom." Everyone was nodding so she continued, "So who should be the Senior Undersecretary? In reality it is the next most important job."

Again there was silence.

And even more silence.

Eventually Amelia broke the silence by saying, "My first thought was Daphne," the young lady was shaking her head vigorously, "and I guessed that she probably wouldn't want the job and I would have hells own job getting her into it anyway. So then I thought, who taught Daphne what she knows?"

"My mum and dad," the young lady replied, "my dad taught me about the Ministry and my mum taught me about how the Ministry affected everything around it; between them they pretty well know how the whole system is supposed to work and that is what they taught me."

"They both used to work for the Ministry, didn't they?"

"Yes and they both quit when dad called the minister a blinkered idiot and my mum added that he was being led around by a demented blond poof with delusions of adequacy." Judging by the laughter they all liked that.

"Would either of them like a job?" Amelia was almost pleading.

"Why only one of them?" Hermione asked, "One could be Internal and the other External; if they were not happy it need only be temporary until after we clear this hump."

"It wouldn't hurt to ask them." Daphne sounded as if she thought that they might agree.

"Ok!" Hermione said, "We should all meet at the Pottery before one tomorrow and come here for lunch, the all is including Daphne's mum and dad."

Having agreed to Hermione's suggestion things settled back down with the four children falling asleep in their dinner.

Forget about the location, this would be a nice way to live; although maybe somewhere where the time difference wasn't four or five hours, Europe or Africa. From what she had read and heard Africa was pretty much a waste of space for a peaceful life what with unstable governments and malaria which was as bad for the magical as it was for anyone else. So Europe then . . . no portals bugger . . . she had read about the Canary Islands they seemed quite nice and didn't they have a history of thumbing their nose at Madrid, for that matter didn't most of the rest of Spain; a little judicious stirring might be in order.

**-x-**

A little later that evening Amelia was at her home and she threw some floo powder into her grate and called out "Augusta Longbottom".

"Amelia, what can I do for you?"

"Would you like to come through, or should I come to you?"

"I will come to you." Neville's grandmother replied.

Half a minute later she stepped into the Bones home and whilst making the normal greetings they made their way to Amelia's study where they sat as an elf served them tea and left them alone.

Amelia started, "As I have already told you Harry Potter, the Lord Merlin amongst a lot of other titles, wants me to be the next Minister of Magic; he has twenty four votes in the Wizengamot, I will be the next Minister. Do you know, the goblins told me today that the Longbottom family hold three votes?"

Augusta was looking shocked and was shaking her head; Amelia continued, "Both Harry and I want you to be the next Royal Witch, however he also wants a fair few changes and he understands that they cannot all happen instantly, however both he and I know that some of them can; have a look at this."

Amelia reached across and picked up her spiral bound reporters pad from a side table and passed it to Augusta.

The Longbottom elder had spent a minute examining the actual notebook before she started to read it, she was thinking about what she had read when she asked, "What did you write this with, it wasn't a quill?"

Passing her the retractable ball point pen she said, "This . . . and I have been assured that I could fill at least five of those note books before the ink in the pen ran out; I could buy three of those particular pens for a galleon although the cheap ones come in at over a hundred for a galleon. The same way the reporters note pads are fifteen for a galleon. The Lady Merlin suggested that these are ideal for taking notes but homework, reports and examinations should be completed on parchment; she also suggested that we look at muggle ink pens, these superseded quills in the muggle world about a hundred years ago. Since the demise of Malfoy, Fudge and a few other Wizengamot members, Harry now owns the quill feather supply chain, he doesn't care one way or the other if it continues to operate, so what we do about ink pens would be entirely up to us.

"When it was first mooted that I should be the next Minister I grumbled that they would want me to change everything and I was given a resounding no by the Lady Merlin. What she said was that so much crap had been added in the name of what we now call tradition that nobody could see the wood for the trees; I think that we have to quickly dump all of the obvious hippogriff poop and see what we have left and work from there.

"You seem to be with me Augusta?"

"Indeed I am Amelia, so where do we go from here?"

"Wait a couple of minutes I will go and speak to my Susan." Amelia stuck her nose in the air as she was walking out of the study whilst in her poshest voice saying, "Or should I say the Lady Susan Amelia Merlin Hufflepuff Potter."

If Augusta hadn't been laughing quite so loudly she would have heard Amelia laughing all of the way to the floo.

When Amelia returned she said, "Tomorrow Neville, his betrothed, you and I are going for some muggle studies lessons with the Potters, we will find you something suitable but get the kids to wear the lightest muggle clothes they have, do you think that you can be here for twelve thirty?"

Augusta agreed and on the way home she was giggling at the fun she was intending having with Neville tomorrow and that would be before they ever arrived at the Potters. Miss Brocklehurst was a very nice girl but she had some attitude problems that wouldn't be very well received in the up and coming new order, well from what she had heard, where they were going tomorrow she would either learn or she wouldn't survive very long.

**-x-**

Meanwhile in the Pottery things were to say the least fraught, flashbacks were in evidence as eight girls realised just how annoying they themselves had been when they were younger; the orphans were all but asleep on their feet and at the same time insisting that they weren't tired. Eventually eight girls two elves and Harry had to take them up to bed; after promises of the beach tomorrow together with a mild threat that if they weren't good they would not be going, the cohort managed to escape back down stairs.

On the way back down to the library Parvati asked, "Why are we waiting until one o'clock to go to Barbados?"

Hermione answered, "There are a couple of reasons; we have been pretty much ignoring Barbados time, it's four or five hours behind ours, so one o'clock here will be eight or nine in the morning there, they don't always have daylight saving time. It hasn't mattered when we leave here in the early evening, tomorrow we will arrive there in the morning, however leaving here at or just after one Barbados should be pretty much up and running when we get there.

"The other thing is that several of us feel that we need some computers up and running; so Harry wants to go to Harrods and organise someone there to completely sort out the South West tower. Also whether he likes it or not we are going to buy Harry a watch, the one he bought in Barbados was much too cheap so it is most probably a fake. It is supposed to be a Rolex Submariner but they cost thousands of pounds, the two hundred and fifty Barbados dollars he paid for it, is simply not enough for it to be real.

It was not very much later that they retired to Harry's big bed; it did not take long for a new rule to be introduced: no sex whilst together in Harry's big bed. It was Susan who had started it and the problem was that all of the cohort became extremely randy and trying to accommodate eight randy wives would kill Harry. So being as how none of them wanted that they had introduced the new rule and so it was an intermittently giggling group who eventually fell asleep having decided that, for once, decorum was the order of the day.

**Authors Note;**

Queen Galadriel is, as all of you well read people know, featured in the Lord of the Rings, however she was around long before the third age. I have ten books, predating J.R.R. Tolkien's death, that give the histories for thousands of years before the Lord of the Rings and she is featured in quite a few of them. She will appear only occasionally in this story and the characteristics attributed to her are mainly of my devising; although some of the things I have dragged out of my memory of her from the book's. If you wish to know which one of the books, I suggest that you read them; they are brilliant and well worth owning.


	4. Chapter 4

**Disclaimer:** J. K. Rowling owns Harry Potter; J. R. R. Tolkien owns Galadriel and I am by no means certain that anything else in this story is original.

**Authors Note:** I will first apologise for the delay in continuing this story; in the light of some correspondence I have taken some time reviewing what I had already written and I am now going to start posting some more of it. My disquiet was exacerbated by the lack of reviews . . . then if it is rubbish it does not deserve to be reviewed . . .

**Day 04**

_**It is Monday the second of August and the time is 06.10 **_

It was the pops made by the arrival of several elves which dragged eight of the nine people sleeping on the enormous bed away from the clutches of Morpheus; it would take more than that to awaken Tracey, the newly minted Lady Black, however she was about to be obliged.

Lauren scrambled straight over the top of her to get to Harry, to add insult to injury she was rapidly followed by three other small people, one of whom at least stopped long enough to give her a quick kiss and cuddle before heading off to more responsive pastures.

A very droll voice said, "In the deluded ramblings of my simple mind I always imagined that if I ever managed to become a real Lady I would laze my life away in bed until at least half past six in the morning: but no, now I realise that we of the aristocracy must pander to the whims of our adoring public." With that Luna pushed Ben onto Tracey and started tickling him.

The result of this was of course to provoke a tickle fest and as things should be everybody received their fair share of the tickling.

When everything settled down again, a very nervous elf said, "They was crying because they was thinking that you had all gone away and be leaving them, they was being frightened and wouldn't stop the crying."

Surprisingly it was Tracey, who was now cuddling Ben, who said, "You all did the right thing, you are good elves; thank you for being good elves for the children." The elves were very happy and left.

Hannah thought that she would push her luck a little bit, "Do we have to get up, or are we going to have a little more sleep?"

"More leep." Came from Lauren who was lying on top of Harry with Hermione on one side and Susan on the other, Harry was cuddling the girls and the girls were cuddling Lauren, all four were content.

As seven o'clock rolled around they all began stirring and getting up, the elves returned and took the children to get dressed and ready for the morning, the cohort did the same to themselves.

Breakfast was relatively normal until Ben accidently dropped his spoon which flicked some corn flakes in the direction of Natalie; a food fight erupted within seconds pitting three girls flicking cereal at Ben. Harry gave them about fifteen seconds before calling a halt, the food fight died out fairly quickly and peace reigned once more; although more than one quasi adult thought that it would start again because Ben had had the last flick.

After breakfast they all adjourned to the library where some of the girls started teaching the orphans to read and the cohort members appeared to be having as much fun as the children.

Further down the room with Harry were sat Hermione, Padma, Luna and Daphne and she said, "All four of these children have come from very ridged, death eater, pureblood homes and as such they have hardly ever met their fathers and rarely met their mothers; they will almost certainly never have met any other children. For the whole of their lives they will have been taken care of by elves, so what they are experiencing here is really outside their previous terms of reference and we must neither expect too much from them nor spoil them rotten; although for a few days I don't think that the latter will matter too much.

"Yesterday I persuaded them to talk to each other and to tell each other what their lives were like before they were brought to where they met us; I listened to them and really even I was surprised just how similar their backgrounds were.

"So what family name are we going to give them?"

Harry said, "This is not set in stone but, my first thought was 'am Crochenydd' which is 'of Potter' in Welsh; then I engaged my brain and I came up with 'am Potter' which I will make sure that everyone realises means that they have been adopted into the House of Potter.

"Also I was going to ask the goblins the total combined value of what we received from the families of all four of them, I was going to divide it into four equal parts and open a vault in each of their names. I do not wish to know what each of their original family names was and I want, as much as I can, to obscure the possibility of anyone else being able to find out. Also I was going to make the day we found them their birthday this would also help to obscure their true identities, really, if we are not interested, I don't see it as being anybody else's business."

He had stopped talking and was waiting for one of the girls to comment, the longer they were silent the more worried he became; he was about to say something else when almost simultaneously they jumped him. Padma was a fraction in front of the other three and she was seriously trying to remove his tonsils with her tongue, he didn't really know what he had done, but whatever it was, he was going to try to do it again . . . several times . . . or more.

Suddenly they were set upon by three year old Lauren who was intent on defending what she perceived as her property . . . namely Harry; when he eventually caught her and reassured her, she gave the four harlots such a look they had tears in their eyes from laughter.

"Is it time to go shopping?" Parvati's voice called through the library.

She was shushed by three people and her sister said, "How do you expect to teach the young ones to be quiet in this room if you make a load of noise?"

It had been a rhetorical question but Parvati answered anyway, "You four were making enough of a row."

"That was Lauren's fault." Daphne said.

Luna smirked, "If the best they can do is to blame a three year old then you can be pretty sure that they have caught a bad case of the wrackspurts."

Parvati and Luna hi fived each other, they knew that they had won; as they were walking away Parvati said, "We are going to get ready to go shopping."

The pair could be heard giggling as they went towards the stairs and they were soon followed by all of the others, both up the stairs and in the giggling.

It hadn't taken them long to get ready and Hermione had, anticipating Harrods being a nightmare, she told everyone to try to keep a low profile.

As things turned out she couldn't have been more wrong, the store was a dream; they were met at the floo exit by a plethora of both male and female squib assistants who didn't seem to be able to do enough for them.

Before they had left home they had decided that if they were asked their names they would tell the whole truth because as time went by they would use Harrods a lot, so running true to form the first person to be asked her name was Hermione; "I am the Lady Hermione Jane Merlin Galadriel Potter."

To say that her announcement caused a stir would be quite an understatement and as her glowing staff appeared in her hand Merlin's staff appeared in Harry's hand and he moved beside Hermione and said, "I am Harry James Merlin Gryffindor Hufflepuff Ravenclaw Slytherin Black Potter."

Emily's whisper to Natalie was heard by everyone, "See I told you he was Harry Potter."

Natalie's whispered reply was just as plainly heard by everyone, "But he has all those other funny names in the middle."

Lauren settled matters in her forthright way, she was nearly a foot shorter than the other two, but she reached up and clipped them both around then ear and said, "That's is because he is importemumpt, it's why he's our daddy now; so behave."

She went over and reached up to him, so he picked her up and after she had kissed him on the cheek she cuddled him around the neck.

The Harrods staff had a serious problem, they were supposed to retain a serious demeanour at all times; however they had eight Ladies, who were laughing so much they had to hold each other up and they were supposed to keep a straight face. _(Because they now knew from the reasonably accurate 'Daily Prophet' guesses, roughly who this group of people were.)_

It inevitably degenerated into a giggle fest.

Eventually the giggling had calmed down to occasional bursts, so six ladies four orphans and five personal shoppers disappeared, in the direction of the toys and children's clothes; with strict instructions to be back here before twelve thirty.

Hermione, Tracey and Harry went with an electronics specialist, who called himself Data and an interior designer called Laura towards men's watches. Hermione had made him leave the Barbados bought Rolex in the castle, she had told him that they didn't want the official Rolex people seeing his fake example, they might well ask some awkward questions. It only took Harry fifteen minutes to decide on an Omega Speedmaster that cost him two and a half thousand pounds, he also realised that the two hundred and fifty dollars he had paid for the Rolex would have been around seven thousand, had it been genuine.

So they moved to the Electronics Department where the first problem they encountered was that they didn't have a telephone line for that matter they didn't have a telephone either; Data realising the situation explained what was possible and they settled on a dedicated satellite channel. It would give them radio, television, telephone and a high speed digital internet connection, Harrods would guarantee the annual upkeep for a nominal amount; only relative to the cost of their satellite connection would the amount be considered nominal.

Having provisionally settled on a ten station computer network, each station running Windows XP Pro and Microsoft Office Pro; the server would handle a dedicated Library program which could be accessed from all of the stations. The selected hardware was aimed at stability rather than speed, none of them would be gaming, they didn't even know how to type; even Hermione only used two fingers on each hand.

For the next stage of the project they needed to go to the south west tower of the castle; Harry was advised to call his elf and Zen took one of the Harrods elves to the tower, the Harrods elf had made a multi use reusable portkey which would serve their current and future needs.

To make the initial survey, five humans and three elves used the portkey to the south west tower; it soon became obvious that there were systems operating in the tower which were beyond the knowledge of the people and elves from Harrods. One of the cohort would have to contact Potter Industries Head Office and have someone from there liaise with the Harrods people in order to advise on and provide the systems needed. In the meantime legalizing the importation of the systems in use here had suddenly become a relative priority.

There were still a lot of things that the Harrods people could be getting on with in the way of furnishings, fittings, carpeting and assorted stuff like that. Harry had done some reading and he advised all of them that most, if not all, of the unusual magical items were designed to explode if tampered with, they would destroy themselves and probably kill whoever was trying to dismantle them. Although plugging things in and pulling plugs out also switching them on and off was perfectly safe; nobody had been particularly surprised by any of these announcements.

The time was approaching twelve so Harry once again called Zen and asked him to have a Potter elf liaise with the Harrods elves and their people from the design teams. Zen had Harry place his hand on the head of the Harrods elf who had made the multi use portkey, apparently this bound the elf and all others using the portkey to keep the House of Potter secrets; Zen then popped the Harrods elf somewhere where he could always contact the Potter elves.

The trio were back in Harrods reception area just before twenty five minutes past twelve.

**-x-**

Before the party had split up the senior Harrods personal shopper had been briefed by Padma, so she led her group of six ladies and four children to the toy department using a route that didn't go anywhere near ladies fashion; if it had they would have most likely lost Parvati for a week.

The five pureblood witches were amazed, the four children were also stunned, unfortunately this only lasted about ten seconds before there were squeals of delight and four little bodies flew in different directions towards their chosen targets. It wasn't very long before some disappointment began to show on the faces of all of the children and Daphne was determined to find out what was causing it; so she sat on the floor with the children and soon found out what the problem was.

She went to the senior assistant and quietly said, "As you are aware these are magical orphans, what you are not aware of is that prior to losing their parents they had been basically ignored by them; so they were looked after almost exclusively by elves and never learned to play or interact with other children. Unless they are specially trained, elves don't really play either, so if one was to conjure a Barbie doll for Emily to play with it would interact with her, something like a mini golem or an avatar, they are not too happy because these toys don't react to them.

"The four of them are from different families but it keeps surprising me, just how alike they are."

The assistant smiled and said, "Then let's go to the magical toy section, the things in there are more expensive but they will be more like what they are used to so they will be more suitable for them."

As they were walking Luna said to the assistants, "I would have thought that you all knew Harry is an orphan, he is also one of the nicest people you will ever meet. That is unless you decide to turn dark, then he will set the courgettes on you and everyone knows that courgettes are agents of Mephistopheles and he is just the devil wearing a wig and high heeled platform shoes because he is only three foot four inches tall and everyone used to laugh at him when he was wearing his favourite pink flip flops.

"So as I was saying Harry will not mind how much anything costs as long as the children are happy." Luna wandered away and over to play with Ben.

The personal shoppers were looking at Daphne like, 'what on earth was that?' and she said, "She is the Lady Luna Ravenclaw and she is absolutely brilliant, but quite scatty, however she isn't daft, let me try to help; neither she nor Harry like courgettes so that is why they become the food of the devil, I am not sure about the pink flip flops."

Padma had been listening and she added, "She broke her pink flip flops on the beach yesterday, I don't know if they were her favourites but she wore them a lot so they probably were; maybe that is why they became the tools of the devil, I will ask her if she wants us to buy her some more."

Luna came over and kissed both Daphne and Padma on the cheek then said, "Thank you ladies, you are starting to understand me; so yes I would like some new pink flip flops but they came from Finland and we are too busy to go there at the moment; maybe in two or three weeks."

The party had reached the magical toys a couple of minutes before and one of the assistants said to Lauren, "Are you not going to find yourself something to cuddle?"

As only a three year old can Lauren looked at the woman as if she was demented and said, "Whenever I want something to cuddle I have Harry Potter and I am not going to swap him for some silly doll." Really there was no answer to that and they all started laughing; except the assistant who had asked the question, she simply blushed sheepishly knowing quite well where she would prefer to get her cuddles.

Having bought a lot of toys the party moved to the children's clothes department where they found and bought a lot of new things for all four of the children; surprising even themselves they managed to make it back to the rendezvous point with two minutes to spare.

**-x-**

Having had many years to practice, no one would have noticed but the Dowager Lady Augusta Longbottom was fairly excited, "Neville! Are you two ready yet?"

"We're right here grandmother." He replied, walking into the room with his betrothed.

Augusta smirked, "We are going to floo to 'the Abattoir'."

The younger pair looked at the older woman oddly, but they threw in the floo powder and called out 'the abattoir' as requested and she followed them through the floo and all three arrived in the Bones house where they were met by Susan and Amelia.

Lady Longbottom said, "May I introduce the Lady Susan Amelia Merlin Potter Hufflepuff, her aunt Amelia Bones is currently the Director of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement and Mme Griselda Marchbanks as you both should know is the Head of the Examination Board, however she is also the prospective head of the new Department of Education."

Mandy Brocklehurst wasn't quite stunned into silence, "You must be joking."

Neville wasn't slow, "My grandmother never jokes about things like this." He said to Mandy and he kissed the offered hands of the three ladies as he greeted them.

Amelia said, "We are dining with the Lord Merlin, so Susan will you do the honours please?"

Susan stood by the fireplace and guided each of them in turn through to 'the Pottery'.

**-x-**

Daphne's task had been a lot easier, Eleanor and Adrian Greengrass, her mum and dad, were expecting her, Eleanor had been going to give Daphne the third degree about the lightweight clothing, however when she saw what her daughter was wearing she just went through the floo.

**-x-**

The majority of the residents of the castle had already decamped to the beach house in Barbados leaving Harry alone to greet all of the visitors, which he did and then he gave them a little lecture, "You may all call me or any others of the cohort by any correct title, I am not Potter _(he stared at Mandy)_ or scarhead, _(he grinned at Neville who smirked back,)_ my preferred name is Harry, today we want to be quite informal; other names you might use are Lord Merlin or Lord Potter. You may use the same name appellations for the rest of the cohort, if you know their given names, those will be the easiest to use.

_( __**Authors Note;**__ in order to alleviate a lot of what I consider to be needless repetition, please assume that from this point until they all leave Barbados everybody either gets introduced or introduces themselves; this obviously assumes that they don't already know each other. ) _

He activated the portable portal, "Enough hanging around let's go and find some lunch, all you have to do is to walk normally through this doorway and please remember that there is someone coming behind you."

The first through was Susan who was followed by Augusta Longbottom, her aunt who was helping Griselda Marchbanks and she was followed by the Greengrass family. Harry held Neville and Mandy back and said, "In the past Mandy has been heard to use an eight letter word that starts with mud, if she uses it today she will be banished to her bedroom, I have never ever been banished anywhere so I have absolutely no idea what it is like being banished about four thousand miles but that is what will happen." He sent the couple through the portal and followed them, Susan was the only one who had waited in Switzerland and after having let Neville and Mandy look out of the window they all travelled on to Barbados.

Harry was hit by a thirty four inch high missile called Lauren who was scolding him for having been missing for hours and hours, it had been at least fifteen minutes, then she threw her arms around his neck and kissed him on the cheek.

He asked her, "Do you want to go shopping with all of the old people, or are you going to play on the beach?"

She pointed at the other visitors and whispered, "They be very old, they be no fun, I go and play and I send you Pavti she'll go to shop with anybody." _(As I have mentioned before Lauren's whispers could normally be heard by everybody.)_ Everybody was laughing so much Augusta and Griselda were having to hold each other up; Parvati arrived and was wondering what all of the fuss was about.

Harry looked rather sheepish, "Well I did say that we were very informal, mind you with Lauren it probably wouldn't make much of a difference, she has so much energy we all get tired just watching her.

"So, this house has powerful cooling charms and I thought that first we would go to the shops and buy some clothes and things which are more comfortable here."

Mandy half interrupted, "Where is here? All I was told was to wear cool clothes."

Hermione smiled, "We are in Barbados, come to the veranda and have a look." Whilst she was leading them she continued, "The elves will be around all of the time with drinks and it's hot so you need to drink a lot, all of the drinks are fruit juice, if you like what you are drinking just ask an elf. Some of you know but others don't so I will say that we treat our elves very well, we would prefer it if they were all free, but they are not ready for that yet; although it will come."

As Hermione was talking they had passed out of the sixty eight degree (20ºC) cooling charms into the eighty five degree (30ºC) Barbados early morning weather, "It is still early in the day here so it hasn't really warmed up yet. We will be having lunch on the beach and you will all need something a lot lighter to wear or you will become very uncomfortable."

Not quite quietly enough, Mandy whispered to Neville, "I didn't bring any money with me."

Hermione smirked, "Mandy has just raised a good point, none of you were told to bring money because you cannot spend galleons here.

"The locals use their version of Dollars, Dollars are used in a lot of countries and most of them look different to each other and they all have different conversion rates, however as far as we are concerned they are all fundamentally the same. Virtually all Dollars are split into one hundred Cents and they all have their value written on them, the Cents tend to be metal and the Dollars are usually notes: it sounds a lot more difficult than it actually is.

"The majority of European muggles use Euros and the British use Pounds but if you ignore what they call them they both work the same way as Dollars."

Mandy looked confused, "In Muggle Studies we were told that the British used pounds shillings and pence and the European countries all used different currencies."

Parvati looked at Griselda scathingly, "I also have an Outstanding in Muggle Studies and it is totally useless; in the last three days I have learned more about the non magical world than I ever did at Hogwarts. British muggles changed to the system Hermione described in 1971, that's over twenty five years ago; how on earth does anybody think that a fairly bigoted pureblood wizard is a good candidate to teach Muggle Studies. Come to that just who in the Ministry would be competent to compile the syllabus for the subject, have any of you met Arthur Weasley? He is the Head of Misuse of Muggle Artefacts, he cannot even say electricity properly he knows nothing about it and even less about muggles than Natalie, she is one of our orphans and she is only four years old; although she is very bright and interested in learning everything as well."

Harry emptied a shoe box half full of local currency onto a table and started sorting through it telling them and showing them all what was there as he was doing it. Then he said, "We will be eating in the dining room because it will be cooler than the beach, we seem to have diverted into something we were going to deal with later, let's go through to talk and eat."

As they moved off Parvati started up again, "Oh, I will tell you all so that you don't worry about it, this wrap I am wearing cost three for a galleon, _(Mandy had suddenly become very interested,)_ and don't be worried about what you are spending; the first day we were together Harry gave all of us Gringotts money bags which we were told had no limit. We thought that this was nonsense so Hermione asked Goldfist and he told us that if he didn't already own it, we could buy 'the Daily Prophet' and he wouldn't notice that the money was gone from his ready cash. So that's what Goldfist meant by no limit, so when we are out do not worry about what we are spending."

During lunch Adrian, Daphne's dad asked, "If we are in Barbados how did we get here? It must be at least four thousand miles."

Amelia answered, "Don't worry about that now, it is one of the things we will be discussing in a fair bit of detail later."

Then Eleanor, Daphne's mum asked, "Wizards use galleons everywhere; why don't all muggles use the same money it would be a lot easier for them?"

Daphne answered her, "There are less than ten million witches and wizards worldwide; Hermione how many muggles are there?"

The brown eyed girl answered, "Nobody really knows, but it is something over five billion; that's half a million muggles for each magic user; or to put it another way, they could have half a million economies as large as the wizarding one. Muggle economists believe that there is an upper population limit beyond which any economy will stop working properly; it is obviously a lot more complicated than that but I am not really interested enough to learn any more about it; but I could direct you to several muggle libraries, full of books dedicated to it, if you wanted."

Looking overloaded Neville said, "I understand why most of the others have stayed outside to eat, it's a bit heavy in here."

The cohort members who were eating indoors all giggled and Susan said, "Lauren was right and it is all Mandy's fault she's the one who first mentioned money; she led us all astray." Susan had giggled all the way through her statement and was obviously not at all serious.

Mandy was once again a bit snippy when she said, "Trust a puff to blame me."

Harry was going to say something however Neville beat him to it, "We will have less of that attitude, these people are my friends and if you want to be judgemental try this on for size.

"Hermione stands first in our year, consistently since first year; Daphne is second and Harry is third; Tracey is fourth and Susan is fifth; Hannah is sixth. Padma is the highest placed Ravenclaw and she is very closely followed by her sister. The only one of the cohort who is not on that list is Luna, who is the Lady Ravenclaw she is only a fifth year; she stands far and away above everyone else in her year and the last time I saw her she was being buried in the sand playing with four orphans. So if you ever even think of calling her Loony again Galadriel will destroy you, now you better get your head out of your arse and get your act together; in this beach house is the future, if you want to be a part of it, it is you who has to change to fit it, the rest of us either don't need to or already have."

As Neville was talking Harry and Hermione stood; she held out her right hand and Galadriel appeared: she grew to six foot eight, her hair became burnished gold waves down her back to her waist, she was clad in a long platinum gown and of course her staff was in her hand. Meanwhile Harry was clad in red and gold robes with Merlin's staff in his hand; the pair of them were radiating an enormous amount of magical power.

The tinkling bells that were normally Galadriel's voice had become more of a death toll, "Mandy Brocklehurst you were warned, the choice is yours."

All of the visitors were amazed and Mandy was cowering on the floor, she squeaked, "I'll change I'll change, please give me another chance; if Neville will help me by giving me a dig every time I even look like goofing."

Everyone was thankful that Galadriel's voice had reverted to the bells, "We will try to be patient with you."

Adrian Greengrass said, "What do they want us for? If they wander into the Wizengamot like that and tell them to leave, they will all soil their underwear and we will never see any of them again."

Eleanor clipped the back of his head, "They want a peaceful life, they don't want to rule the magical world; if you hadn't noticed that is why we are all here."

Merlin and Galadriel had reverted to Harry and Hermione and he said, "We dare not get personally involved in the running of the wizarding world, we wouldn't be allowed to leave; however if in the future we have to get involved, you have just been given a taste of what we will do.

Lauren had sent Parvati in here and as far as she was concerned, so far it was under false pretences, "That's enough. Let's all go shopping."

Everybody stood up and they all trooped out of the house towards the shops.

**-x-**

Neville and Mandy walked to the shops with Harry and Hermione and she gave Mandy virtually the same lecture as she had given to Chloe a few days before, it probably had more effect on Mandy than it had had on Chloe and that was what they wanted. It had been obvious at lunch that although he didn't know everything, Neville had been in contact with at least some of the cohort recently and thankfully Mandy seemed to think that it was a good thing.

The adult shopping was very steady and they each had bought two outfits; one of which they had decided to wear.

After a while Daphne noticed that her mother was making notes with a self inking quill on a piece of parchment, as to what was bought also all of the prices and she challenged her as to what she was up to, her mother answered, "Currently your father and I have been told very little of what is actually going on, however I hope that neither of us are stupid and it is fairly obvious that something major is happening; also it looks like you want to drop one or both of us into the middle of it. Some of what has been said was about the Ministry, but a lot of it was about muggles and their money; so I am making notes which I know that I will find interesting, however I also believe that in all probability, they will also become useful. Ok?"

Daphne looked rather sheepish, "I thought that you were going to work out how much everything cost so that you could pay Harry back and we have already told you that that will not be necessary."

**-x-**

Although it was for different reasons, Neville was a bit like Harry with regard to clothes in that he didn't pay much attention to them and he had decided on virtually the same items as Harry had bought when he had first come to these shops.

Mandy however was an entirely different kettle of kippers, she had Parvati, Susan and Hermione encouraging her, at first she was a bit reticent especially about the really skimpy bikinis. However with the other two girls help, Parvati had even opened her wrap and shown her the one she was wearing underneath it from then on it was full steam ahead.

The group had left the clothes shops and wandered around the other few shops which were nearby, they looked at a lot but the only things that they bought were a load of retractable ball pens and a pile of reporters note pads.

**-x-**

When the group arrived back at the house Parvati, Susan and Mandy decided to change and go out to the beach; all of the others made their way to a room that seemed to be a combined giant study and a library where they were joined by Padma.

It was Amelia who started them off by explaining to the purebloods how their retractable ball point pens worked, also approximately how much you could expect to write with one. The reporters note pads, although nominally different to anything they were used to, were obvious enough and everyone had started off with at least three; however there was still a pile of at least thirty, it was on one of the book shelves.

The Department of Magical Law Enforcement Director suggested keeping notes on the major subjects they were each interested in, separated in different notebooks.

She moved on to her ideas for the future, "A few days ago I was asked by the Lord Potter's cohort to become the next Minister of Magic and what I said is accurate, Lord Potters cohort currently hold twenty four of the fifty one Wizengamot votes. Four of the five Ministry votes cannot be cast because their holders were disenfranchised in the death eater clearout, this in itself gives him a majority, however his friend Lord Longbottom also wields the Croaker and the Perivale votes.

"Between them they hold a controlling majority in the Wizengamot, they are friends and they agree on pretty much everything. I will add that I also pretty much agree with their vision for the future, as do the Ladies Marchbanks and Longbottom.

"So as I said, provided you all think that it is a good idea, I will be the next Minister."

She paused for about half a minute and then continued, "A meeting of the Wizengamot has been called to appoint a new Minister of Magic on Wednesday at nine thirty, what they don't seem to realise is that they have a problem, Dumbledore was removed at the same time as the exodus. There is no Royal Witch or Wizard and without a leader the Wizengamot has no franchise, so the first thing that must happen is that their leader must be appointed and the consensus we came to was that it should be Augusta Longbottom.

"Basically we have gathered you all here today to lay out a rough plan to navigate our way through all of the changes, both major and a few of the minor, on our path to a more sustainable future and the reason for me putting it that way should become obvious.

"If any of you think that you have a better idea of someone for either job please say so."

Amelia again paused, this time for about a minute Neville looked slightly stunned and everybody was looking thoughtful but they all appeared to be in agreement with what had been suggested.

Amelia continued, "When Lord . . . bother it he said that it was to be informal . . . when Harry suggested me being Minister we also talked about some of the changes that needed to be made to our society to make it function more efficiently. Some silly things; you saw what the pens you are using cost, they can be bought for as little as one hundred for a galleon and each one will probably fill five of those Reporters Note Books which are about twenty five for a galleon.

"Why don't we normally use them for taking notes? It was Daphne who provided me with an answer which I first off found only slightly surprising . . . Lucius Malfoy; he held a controlling interest in parchment production and along with Fudge and Dumbledore quill production as well. We will have to undo the ban on using the far more efficient muggle devices for note taking, both at Hogwarts and in the Ministry, parchment is relatively expensive so it will only be used for submitting reports, homework and examinations. Also the muggles gave up using quills about a hundred years ago and moved on to something called a fountain pen, I haven't actually seen one yet but I will get around to it soon and we can decide what we think.

"I have been a bit naughty, I can see Eleanor and Adrian fidgeting, they are no doubt wondering why they are here; well in the big clearout, thankfully we also lost the Senior Undersecretary and we think that the pair might like the job. Adrian would dealing with the Ministry internals including, but not limited to the reorganization and restructuring which needs to be done inside the Ministry. Eleanor would be handling what happens outside the Ministry including dealings with the muggles, schooling, hospitals, portals and on and on.

"As brief as your time here has been you must realize that apart from anything else there are a whole raft of magical items that need to be rapidly taken off the prohibited list.

"For instance, I love the lighting in this room it is magical and it is produced in Canada by Potter Industries, as Harry told me, it is ludicrous that Britain looses those jobs and the tax revenue the production would provide. We came here today using another Potter Industries product, this time it was made in Australia, a portal, these are banned throughout Europe, except for Switzerland which is why all of the international conventions held in Europe are always in Switzerland.

"The devise we used to get from the Pottery to Switzerland is unique and can only be used by a Potter; it has no name and the Department of Magical Law Enforcement has no interest in it, except for when I come here to lay in the sun; my thought is that portals should be made legal . . . very quickly.

"A pause for thoughts and comment."

Eleanor was glaring at her daughter, "You knew all of this, didn't you?"

Daphne smirked, "But of course and a lot more as well." She poked her tongue out at her mother who giggled, she continued, "One thing I will tell you; that the Lady Merlin has stated, quite forcibly was; 'We need to be keeping the wizarding traditions that matter but we should try not to let them inhibit progress or personal freedom. Daughters are not commodities to be bartered by their father's for any reason she could think of, or betrothed against their will again for any reason she could think of; also if anybody has any suggestions as to when it might be appropriate then she was prepared to listen to them.'. As we have seen, the Lady Galadriel can be a tad intimidating, _(Neville fell off his chair laughing,)_ so I suggest that you let it be known anyone who wishes to do it in the future better have a really good reason and 'but we have always done it.' Is not a reason, the practice is barbaric and it must stop."

Neville mumbled, "She was more than a 'tad intimidating' when she was just Hermione; as Galadriel she's bloody terrifying."

Eleanor said, "I agree completely but a lot of people are not going to like what she's saying and what are we going to do about the existing contracts?"

Harry shifted in his seat, "All of the death eater chattels in my possession have had any such contract annulled, Higher Magic will stop any other new contract's from being enacted, everyone will be given twenty eight days to bring all of the other annulled contracts to the Ministry. We will then summon all of the still existing contracts and the parties responsible for drawing them up and they better have something really interesting to tell us because they will be in serious trouble."

There was a pause whilst everyone digested what Harry had just said; eventually Adrian continued seriously, "I have it on reasonably good authority that the Ministry is running pretty much from hand to mouth financially; how are we going to fund all that needs to be done; every change will need at least a little money?"

With a strange smile Harry spoke again, "I have been thinking about this."

Neville smirked, "Oh Lord help us all, I know that look, this is going to be a doozy."

Harry grinned, "Well I acquired a little bit of money for my part in the recent death eater clearout, I have already used some of it for the school and the orphans. However there is still a bit left, so I was thinking of giving about half of it to the Ministry to help with the revamp, obviously there will be no strings attached; how much do you think that five hundred million galleons will them help?"

There was a stunned silence.

"Bloody Nora!" Adrian received another clip around the back of his head but still he continued, "In normal times it would last about fifty years, but I guess that we would be expected to put public Portals and things in a few places . . . anyway how much do they cost?"

Surprising Harry, because he hadn't bothered to check, Padma said, "A household one, like the one's in Switzerland and here are just under a thousand galleons, there is a connection charge but it is only a galleon a week when paid annually that is something of a standard cost for a terminal with security. If you wanted one in the atrium of the Ministry it would cost twenty thousand galleons for a twenty person terminal because they would need security. If the same thing was in Hogsmeade or Diagon Alley or outside security at the Ministry it would be fifteen thousand galleons. Of course there are specialist terminals for use at facilities like hospitals, prisons and places like that; really I don't think that they are that expensive relative to their comfort and convenience, especially if they become commonplace."

It was quiet whilst they considered what Padma had told them, Neville disturbed the peace, "So if a family didn't have one at home, they could use the floo to get to the nearest public one and then use that, free of charge, to get to wherever they wish to go?"

Eleanor smiled at him, "That seems to be about the size of it Neville, they could go anywhere there is a public terminal; a day out in Florida or Tokyo but not in Paris or Rome . . . it seems insane."

Looking at Eleanor and Adrian, Amelia spoke again, "You both seem to be with us?"

Eleanor smirked, "Just one more question for the moment, if there are two Senior Undersecretaries will they both have the regular salary, or only a percentage?"

Amelia smiled, "You have obviously been keeping an eye on the Ministry salary structure it is after all published information, so you know that the lower three grades were being seriously underpaid; under the previous administration no pure bloods were ever started in these positions so they didn't care. I have a long list of mid level workers and lower management personnel, unsurprisingly they are nearly all pure blood males, who cannot do their jobs. These people will be offered a straight choice; relocation to a job they should be capable of with the resultant drop in salary; or they can use the exit, they have been doing very little whilst being overpaid for years so, if they go, they will receive no severance pay.

"If you know her you will not be surprised that it was the Lady Ravenclaw, and Luna really does deserve the title, who put me straight when she said something like, 'If, through any form of cronyism, you employ someone in a position they are not capable functioning in then that job doesn't get done, if you employ everybody this way then the organisation stops working.

"This is what we now have, a Ministry full of people who were employed because of their families or who they knew and it cannot be allowed to continue; your first urgent task will be to rationalise all of the Ministry pay grades. Generally the top managers pay level is about correct if they are capable and doing the job's they are being paid for; those that can't must be reassigned or they must go; the top jobs are not supposed to be easy, but that is why they are well paid. To put it mildly the jobs you are being asked to do at first might well be the stuff of nightmares and with a lot of thanks to Harry, you will both be paid a full salary; also the top levels especially will be very severely punished if they are found to be misusing their position's.

"Another thing; 'Potters Portals' by their very nature must be sold, installed and maintained by the company; however virtually everything else manufactured by the Potters will be available for franchise on the same terms as they are everywhere else they are available. There will be some very exciting business opportunities available; I did notice that one of the conditions of the franchise's was that rampant profiteering will result in the franchise being withdrawn; I actually think that the words were, 'attempted rampant profiteering'. Potter Industries will provide, at a nominal cost, training for the installation and servicing of their franchised products."

Hermione said, "We have had a rather heavy few hours and you have rather a lot to think about; so I think that we should adjourn to the beach for a while."

It seemed that everyone agreed as they all stood and they gradually made their way to the beach.

**-x-**

It wasn't so much the beautiful beach that had stunned the first time visitors, as the sight of nine extremely attractive young witches wearing thong bottomed string bikinis; the three from the meeting had quickly stripped out of their wraps as soon as they reached the sand.

It was Eleanor Greengrass who broke the silence, "Harry, you are my son in law and I want one of those, it is your duty to take me back to the shop please?"

Daphne rolled her eyes, "Mother! You are not going to drag Harry back to the shop to buy yourself a thong bikini . . . I've got a spare." Then she dragged her mum back into the house.

Amelia was kind of used to this but both Hermione and Harry had been slightly worried that Augusta and Griselda would be rather prudish; however currently they were having to hold each other up, this was due to their laughing at Neville.

Of them all it was Neville who was having a major problem; he had taken one look at Mandy in her string bikini and flopped down sitting on the sand. Subsequently it did not help him at all that Mandy had immediately bounced over to him and was currently bending over in front of him whilst trying to help him back to his feet.

From her grin they knew that Luna wasn't even going to try to help matters, "I think that Mandy has broken him, but I don't think that it is permanent . . . you can tell . . . his eyes are following her boobs" Her statement, although entirely accurate did not help Augusta and Griselda at all.

This also made Mandy giggle and when she giggled it made her boobs jiggle and Neville's eyes were now following the jiggling.

It took five minutes until Neville managed to say, "Harry, I'm going to kill you."

Looking wide eyed and innocent Luna asked, "Why are you going to kill Harry?"

Neville spluttered, "Because he didn't warn me."

Luna was getting there, "But you enjoyed looking at Mandy's boobs."

He turned beetroot, "That's not the point."

Suddenly Luna had disappeared and this was the Lady Ravenclaw, "It most certainly is the point, I know you of old Neville Longbottom; if you had known that Mandy was out here dressed like that you would still be indoors and two or three of us would be in there, wasting our time, trying to persuade you to come out here. But instead you are out here, your still enjoying looking at Mandy's boobs and now you're trying to blame Harry for it, when really and truly you know full well that it is all Mandy's fault for not having shown you her boobs often enough for you to get used to seeing them."

Without thinking Mandy said, "But he has seen my boobs, a load of times." As she said it she realised just what she had told everyone and clamped her hand over her mouth. For his part Neville turned bright red and buried his face in his hands; meanwhile Luna danced away happily, she had won again.

Amelia helped, "I do believe that we should leave these two young people to commiserate with each other and go to sit under the sun shades and have a cool drink."

**-x-**

The younger generation, now plus Eleanor, were playing a game which involved a lot of squealing, tickling and getting dunked in the sea; it was mainly the orphans who were being caught but it certainly wasn't confined to them.

Lauren took a grip on Hermione's leg, "Mummy Mione?"

Hermione picked her up and asked, "What is it darling?"

Kissing her on the cheek Lauren asked, "Is we going to be doing some reading today?" Due to Lauren's volume everybody heard and the other three orphans joined in chanting; 'reading', 'reading', 'reading' . . .

Hannah, Tracey, Padma and Parvati rapidly picked up the orphans and disappeared into the house with them.

The Head of the Magical Examination Board enquired, "Aren't they a little young to be reading?"

Hermione held up her hand and stopped the others saying anything and all of them followed her as she went and sat with the older generation under the umbrellas. "We encourage them and make it kind of a game but we never force them, as you saw it is usually them who ask for the lessons and they don't last long; little ones don't have the attention span. However I could read everything just after my third birthday of course I couldn't really understand it all but by the time I was three and a half I really knew how to use a dictionary, this is something a lot of thirteen year old magical children can't do. _(Griselda muttered; 'You're right most of them never learn'.)_

"It all started when Ben asked for a story so I picked out a book and started reading it, to all four of them, it didn't take long for Natalie to ask me what I was doing, none of the four had ever even seen a book. Remember that these are children from families where both of the parents were death eaters, if they asked for a story, it would have been a house elf they asked and who told them one and house elves are not allowed to read. _(The way the last seven words were said the adults realised that this was something else which would have to change.) _

"When we told them that there are a lot of books with story's in them they wanted to learn to read, so that they could read the story's themselves whenever they wanted to; it is irrelevant and they don't care that it will stand them in good stead in the future and as I said 'we never push it'.

"In the vast majority of cases nurture trumps nature; Daphne is a very attractive girl she takes after her mother, Eleanor is still a very attractive woman, this is thanks initially to nature, but it is maintained by nurture.

"Tom Riddle didn't wake up with a headache one dismal Monday morning and think, 'I'm going to be a Dark Lord and call myself Lord Voldemort and kill everybody who doesn't worship me'. His mother, although practically destitute, was the last blood heir of Salazar Slytherin so he had to be sorted into Slytherin House, but his father was a muggle, so he had a pretty rough ride for his first few years in Hogwarts and he gradually became darker. Don't get me wrong I don't think that he was ever a very nice person and the muggle orphanage he was sent to didn't help to improve his disposition; it was nurture which exacerbated the unpleasant side of his nature.

"So to get back to your original question, no, they are not too young to learn to read."

Harry cleared his throat, "We are opening an infants and a primary school in a section of Hogwarts Castle which nobody has known was there since just after the Founders built the castle. It might be possible to expand the scope of its catchment, at the moment it is for the under Hogwarts school age children who are living in the castle; someone would need to talk to Minerva about that sort of thing."

Hermione gave them an evil smile, "This is something that you need to think about, although it will need to be kept extremely confidential; a couple of days ago I met about a dozen or so squibs and I realised that I could make them all magical."

The only person who was not stunned at this revelation was Harry, quite simply he had felt it as well; before anybody said anything Harry said, "Nobody say anything about this for at least a couple of weeks, it presents quite a problem a kind of all or none deal unless it is reserved for children under the age of one or two. Just think about it and all of the ramifications."

It had been about three quarters of an hour and a gang of eight came charging out of the house screaming all the way to the sea.

Amelia complained, "Sometimes I hate myself; should we go back inside and carry on with our deliberations?"

Standing Susan said, "Do we all need to continue hashing things out with you?"

Daphne said, "I will go with them, I am actually interested in all of this kind of thing."

Mandy said, "Well I will go as well, I am also interested in all of this kind of thing, although I want to take a vow not to reveal what I have learned here today, if it's protected by a vow I won't be able to blurt it out accidentally."

Neville kissed her and said, "Well done darling Amelia will sort out your oath, I will come with you but I want to come back to this place sometime when we don't have a load of crap to deal with."

This Harry immediately agreed to.

**-x-**

All the participants agreed that it had been a most productive day and before they all left after dinner the adults decided that they were going to get together again, the next day at the Abattoirs.

**-x-**

At home a while later Hermione found Harry alone and queried, "Do you think that we would be able to give my parents magic; it has always seemed to disappoint them not being magical?"

He scratched his head, "Why are you asking me? You know that I have no more idea than you do, in fact probably even less, you know them a lot better than I do."

"Well, they are staying in Geneva and when I mentioned wanting to see them to Amelia she gave me this multi, use wand operated return portkey."

The pair were still in muggle clothes and thirty seconds later they were in a hotel in Switzerland.

As luck would have it Hermione's parents were in their room and having called them on the house phone the two most powerful magic users in the world went up to talk to her parents.

Having been introduced to Dan and Emma Hermione's parents, grinning Emma said, "What disaster has befallen our house you usually manage more than four days without us?"

The pair of them looked at each other, they were surprised that it had only been four days but she said, "We want you to stay calm so just sit on the sofa whilst we test something."

Her parents were used to her in this mood so they obediently sat together on the small sofa; over the years they had found that it was a lot easier than arguing for ten minutes and eventually still doing what she wanted anyway.

Standing before her parents they both held out their right hands and their staves appeared as they morphed into their alter ego's; a pale blue bubble enclosed the couple on the sofa and soon faded away and the magic users reverted to their normal selves.

Smiling they both sat on the edge of the bed, in front of her stunned parents, she said, "A lot has happened since you went on holiday, it would take a week or more to explain it all to you but that is not why we are here, we have become the most powerful magic users since . . . well for ten thousand years, if not more. The other day we discovered that we could change squibs, they are the non magical children of magical parents, into magic users; we have just checked you two and we can change you into a witch and a wizard; if that is what you would like.

"From watching you I know that you have always appeared to want to be magical, but what we are offering is very different, this is real and it would drastically alter your lives . . . forever. We want you to think carefully about it over the next few days, if you decide to do it you will have to leave the regular world for at least a year to have your magic trained. We have plenty of money so whatever you do you will never have to worry about money again; so don't let that influence your decision.

"Now I am going to be the world's worst daughter and go back to the Pottery to sleep and just so you don't worry, the Pottery is a one hundred and fifty bedroom castle in Wales and Harry is my husband." The couple used their portkey and vanished.

The room was silent for perhaps a couple of minutes and Dan said, "We're in the Twilight Zone."

Emma was made of sterner stuff, "No we're not, that was real . . . I think"

"I need a drink!"

"So do I, a big one, let's go down to the Bar."

It wasn't long before the room was empty.

**-x-**

**Authors Note Continued:** . . . so you have ploughed through ten thousand plus words and if you feel that it was worth it, it would ease my confused head if you would let me know.


	5. Chapter 5

**Disclaimer;** J. K. Rowling owns the rights to Harry Potter, she deserves them for the first five brilliant books she wrote; the last two excuses play practically no part in my personal view of Harry Potter's world; or this story.

**Authors Note:** Please look kindly on this miscellaneous collection of ten thousand plus words; I hope that it meets with your approval.

**Day 05**

_**It is Tuesday the third of August and the time is 07.00 **_

Everybody was up early; both of the Ladies Gryffindor and the Ladies Hufflepuff were excited to be looking after the orphans today and later in the day they would all be going to their beach house in Barbados. The elves were looking forward to this as well, normally when the whole cohort was there they had little opportunity to join in the games, they were hopeful that today would be different.

Geography was a word she had never even heard of, so Natalie had used the basic logic of a four year old child, "If it is dark in Barbados why don't we go to the beach here?" Unsurprisingly she didn't understand weather patterns either.

So, although Hannah's parents were in work, she knew that they wouldn't mind so she had taken the other seven to her family's home near Fowey in Cornwall.

However this was summer in England and the aforementioned weather patterns were having fun.

The wind was south westerly force seven, _(practically a gale,)_ the waves were about six foot high and crashing onto the, reasonably sheltered, beach and the temperature was about 50° F or 10° C without the chill factor. Hannah had started to open the door to the veranda and Parvati had to quickly come to help her to close it against the wind that was relentlessly trying to force it open. _(Well it was probably fun for the weather patterns.)_

Natalie smiled sheepishly at her, "It's not like Barbados here, it's not nice."

Padma picked her up and cuddled her, "That's why we go to the beach in Barbados; I wonder if Harry has a house in Goa where our family comes from, it would be warm and light there?"

Obviously this question would have to wait until some later time to be definitively answered, according to Goldfist if he didn't already have one they could easily afford to build one.

An idea started percolating in her head and Padma's eyes started gleaming, "Parvati you remember that twenty five acre plot, on the beach in Goa, Uncle Rajiv was on about it; how much did he say that the consortium wanted for it?"

Parvati looked curious, "I'm not certain, the skinflint was complaining that the owners were profiteering, I think that he said that it was fifty million rupees or something like that."

Her twin was looking excited, "That's only about one hundred thousand galleons, we could get Harry to buy it and build us a beach house there for the mornings; it would seriously upset Rajiv, the dirty old pervert." _(Their Uncle Rajiv had tried to buy the twins off of their father at their thirteenth birthday party, needless to say, even at that age, the twins were not particularly impressed, neither was their father.)_

Grinning Parvati pleaded, "Harry won't care if we just buy it but we should tell him first, he might already own something there already, like the strange place next-door to it; I want to be with you when we tell uncle pervy."

Hannah and Susan were giggling and Hannah told them, "You know that I was looking through that box of files, mainly at the section with all of the properties, that was when I found the Barbados house. Thinking about it I'm fairly sure that there was one there in Goa but at the time I had no idea where Goa was so I ignored it, so it's in India."

Susan had talked to Parvati about where her family originally came from, "Goa is on the west coast of India about half way up and the weather is generally very good although it does get quite wet in the summer, but compared to England it is always warm."

Padma suggested, "I think that we should all go back home and wait for this afternoon to go to the beach."

The orphans all latched onto one of the cohort and they all used the floo to return to the Pottery where there would soon, at the orphans request, be another reading lesson.

**-x-**

At eight o'clock, Daphne and Tracey were going to spend the day in the Bones family home, they had equipped themselves with black, blue, red and green ball point pens as well as six reporters note pads each. The pair of ex-Slytherin witches would be representing the Potter family interests; they didn't really expect any problems, they would just take a lot of notes, these would have to be checked through later.

**-x-**

Most of the cohort had noticed that Harry had, over the previous few days, spent rather a lot of his spare time reading in the library and making floo calls; he hadn't told them who he was calling or what the calls were about. Luna and Hermione had decided this morning that at seven fifteen they were going to go to Geneva to keep an eye on help him. Either Daphne or Tracey would go there with them to return the portable portal to the Pottery; they could really do with at least another one if not more.

At seven fifteen, accompanied by Daphne the trio used the portable portal to go to Switzerland and after seriously kissing him goodbye, _they would only be apart for a few hours the way she was kissing him you'd think that they would be apart for months,_ Daphne returned, taking the portable portal back to the Pottery.

The girls were waiting for him to select their next destination but Harry went over to the left hand side of the room where he opened an odd section of the wall. This revealed a panel with what looked like a complete runic alphabet engraved on a metallic looking tablet, it was set in the wall at the back of the open section, the two girls were both ecstatic and intrigued. He took a reporters pad out of his pocket and after, with difficulty, moving both of the girls out of his way, twice; referring to a page in his note book, he selected seven runes.

Magic filled the room and all of the seating moved tidily around the walls, then a table which must be twenty foot by six foot occupied the centre of the room, it had more than a dozen chairs around it. The two girls were about to start giving Harry the third degree when the fixed portal activated and seven people, all carrying large boxes, came through; having put their boxes out of the way one of them reactivated the portal and two of the seven people left.

Introductions were made all round and the five new arrivals, who were from Potters Portals in Australia, were; Joe who ran that division of the company; Archie who was the Head of research and Development; Bert the Senior Installations Foreman; Samantha who liked to be called Sam, she was the Head of Administration and Personnel and an extremely helpful senior secretary who was quite young, she was called Jill.

During the day they would learn that Jill was only eighteen years old and she was a senior secretary because she was totally outstanding at her Job. Confidentially Jill made it clear to Hermione that she was still a virgin, it did not take the bookworm any time at all to figure out just what Jill was hinting at, she made it clear to Jill that Harry would have to get to know her before anything else should be said. It had been left unsaid that Jill would have to get to know and be accepted by all of the cohort before she stood any chance of fulfilling her admittedly tenuous dream.

It was quite obvious that the visitors were well aware of exactly who they had been coming to meet.

This random fact somewhat confused both Luna and Hermione because neither of them had finally decided that they would be coming here until about an hour and a half ago. On second thoughts they both knew that the cohort wouldn't allow Harry to go anywhere on his own and he knew this as well as they did, the likelihood of him being accosted by a female or females unknown was a very real one, so he could be quite certain that the pair of them would be here. He had been even more devious than that, if they had known that he was coming here for a business meeting they possibly would be doing something else and not bother coming here. Ah, but then he would pout and look sad and they would be here in a shot, the pair didn't want to admit it but he seemed to have them completely sussed.

It was just not fair.

It was Archie who started off, "I think that we have managed to bring everything from our range you said you would like, but before we start going through it all we should let Bert go and check all of the old installations currently in the Pottery; if nothing else they could all probably do with updating."

Harry agreed and called Zen who disappeared to the Pottery with Bert.

Meanwhile Hermione and Luna were in a tizzy; Sam and Jill were unpacking a large crate full of shrunken books and were first expanding them and then arranging them on the bookshelves. The pair of them were just throwing the old books on the floor which didn't please Hermione, but neither of the girls wanted to miss anything.

Eventually Sam said, "Hermione, there are a lot of books missing from the set that was here, they all need to be destroyed and then recycled, I have put all of the latest issues of the missing books here. Also in this section, there are about one hundred and fifty books for the new products we have introduced over the last fifteen years or so, there are at least three or four books for each item. These thirty five are the project notes for some other new items we are trying to develop, the pair of three inch thick monstrosities at the end are two copies of the listing's of all of the publicly accessible portal terminals all over the world, one copy for here the other is for the Pottery. The directory is arranged by continent, country, city or town then alphabetically, there is also a section that is listed by product, did you know that there are now over five hundred companies that make butterbeer. I think that that is about it for now, all that is left to do is to collect all the superseded literature which I have no doubt you have been reading."

Hermione had found it very difficult to concentrate on what Sam was saying, Archie and Harry had been dismantling their old portal and then they had assembled a brand new one and it looked like it was a new model. How dare they do that without her, she knew somewhere deep down inside that she was being totally unreasonable but Harry was definitely pushing it, he was going to get a piece of her mind later on.

"Hermione, will you help me assemble this other portal in the Pottery as soon as we get them made legal?" Grinning he added, "Like tomorrow evening."

He had done it again, hadn't he? Harry had completely undermined and derailed her silent tirade and she said as she beamed a smile at him, "Of course I will darling."

The assembly of their new portal was completed so Jill moved one of the huge directories onto a shelf especially provided for it on the side of the unit.

Archie said, "It is best to think that none of this technology takes kindly to shrinking, some of the items will survive but it is generally best not to chance it for any of them, they all seem to be immune to feather light and levitation charms and magic like that but avoid shrinking. Another very important thing is that virtually everything we produce is booby trapped, if someone tries to dismantle anything it is very likely to explode; as the muggles say there are no user serviceable parts inside. As far as we are concerned the only reason anyone would have to try to take any of these items apart is to try to copy them and the company is exercising its right to protect its intellectual property."

Hermione giggled, "You sound like a muggle government health warning."

Joe smiled, "That's where a lot of the wording comes from, everything we sell comes with a label and a card with the warning on it, we don't really want to kill off all of our customers it just looks like it. If any of you are really interested how everything works of course we will teach you; you will need to be really interested because it will probably take a year studying eight hours a day five days a week.

"Basically it is runic groupings embedded in crystal matrices and I don't really know what that means, the next stage in understanding is way out there over my head and it is what would take a year to get to grips with; I'm an administrator not a scientist."

As they had been talking they had all been helping to unload the contents of another large box whilst Joe and Jill had been gradually moving everything to the far end of the table and sorting the boxes into similar piles and then they all had sat at the other end of the table.

Sam said, "The other big box contains four sets of thirteen way house phones, the set for the Pottery is twenty three way." She rolled her eyes and added with feigned exasperation, "What is it with magic and prime numbers?"

Next up was Archie he said, "Don't mind her, she's a lot smarter than she lets on." Sam was smiling when she clipped him on the back of his head as laughing he continued, "I think that the mobile phones should be first."

Jill pulled three boxes from a pile of about a dozen and passed one to each of them; Luna was nearest to her and she started helping her to open and unpack her box; the other two copied her. Archie continued, "These are magical mobile phones, to activate yours just touch it with your wand; they are impervious to just about everything, just don't drop one in an active volcano.

"People will ask you so I will start off by telling you that they cost one hundred galleons each and I can see the look of horror on Hermione's face, but just think for a minute. You can call anyone, anywhere in the world, talk for as long as you like, on a muggle or a magical phone, without incurring any additional charge, forever; I don't think that about five hundred pounds is too much for that; oh and all calls to them from any muggle phone, are also free. They don't cost us anything like a hundred galleons but we need to make people think that they are worth something, we would make a profit selling them at ten galleons, however that would make ownership too easy."

Luna had absolutely no idea, Harry had only a vague idea, Hermione however knew what muggle phone calls cost and the free anywhere forever bit would have her parents wanting one each, if they would work for muggles, she who was the first among equals was now smiling.

The flip phones were four inches by two inches and half an inch thick _(folded)_ fresh from the box they were all silver but with a simple colouring charm you could make the phone any colour you would like it to be. Luna's currently had a lime green front and a day glow orange back, Sam had made her clear the dancing multicoloured trolls after telling her that they would stop the phone being muggle friendly.

The box for each phone had contained a detailed handbook, whoever had written it hadn't assumed anything other than the purchaser could read but it was also prolifically illustrated; if he had bothered to try even Ron Weasley could have followed these instructions. Aside from the thoroughness of the instructions, it didn't stop Archie from giving them a detailed briefing on the operation of the phone, as he said; as soon as they left the room they would become the resident British experts on Potter Portable Phones.

To use the phone the first thing that they had to do was to touch theirs with their wand, this keyed the particular phone to the individual, this they all did; this would put their name onto the Potter Net and it would display on all of the other networked phones. Obviously Hermione was impatient to try hers, she wanted to call her parents but she knew that this was not the time so she went across the far side of the room and called Luna, who promptly dropped the phone she had been holding as soon as it rang.

After Harry had coaxed her to pick up the offending item, she was holding it like a highly radioactive piece of nuclear waste; Harry stood behind her and guided her hands to open the phone . . . which stopped it from ringing.

Luna smiled, so Harry guided the phone to her ear . . . Hermione spoke and Luna promptly dropped her phone again and it closed cutting the connection; it looked like some work needed to be done, teaching the purebloods just what telephones were.

Harry had little doubt that Arthur Weasley would be any better than Luna, in fact he would lay odds that he would be worse and despite any and all of the warnings they might be given, he and his idiot twins, were very likely to blow themselves up. The three of them had a thing about taking other peoples products apart; if they tried to dismantle any Potter product and it exploded, then so be it.

Next Archie moved on to the latest version of the portable portal's; they were still not and probably never would be, available to the general wizarding public, they actually cost more to make than the fixed portals. The new model they had been give was keyed so that it could, as before, only be activated by a Potter; but as he said the development had already been done for other products.

The original version had fixed round trip destinations, like the one they had between the Pottery and the Swiss Chalet; the new one was far more flexible and none of the three were sure that Amelia Bones would entirely approve of its improved flexibility. So no problem then, they would simply forget to tell the Director of Magical Law Enforcement until after the Wizengamot had approved the use of portals and then they would be legal and it wouldn't matter anyway.

The new unit looked like the mobile phone except it was five inches long against the phone's four, however when it was flipped open it had a keypad similar to the one on the new fixed portal with the addition of a save button and a home button which would take them to the Pottery. It was possible to use the home button from any location, it now was also possible to save that location and to return there when you wanted to, this meant that if any of the girls used theirs at their parents home they would be able to travel there whenever they wanted to. The display presented a scrollable list of pre programmed destinations which only had to be selected to provide a portal to that destination; besides the Potter properties the full three inch thick directory of destinations were available via the runic keypad. All of their personal saved destinations would have to have a description added when they were first saved, the whole idea wouldn't work otherwise.

He was interrupted by a 'ping' and a portable portal port appeared near to the fixed portal and through it came the troupe who were heading for the Barbados beach house; there was a blur, a squeal of, "Daddy Harry!" Then Lauren landed on his lap, her arms went around his neck and she kissed him on his cheek, leaping off him she repeated the process, first with mummy Mione and then with mummy Lulu who's lap she settled on.

The cohort knew that all four little ones had a problem saying Hermione so the lady in question happily accepted Mione, however they were equally certain that the orphans could all say Luna but they liked to call her Lulu and being perfectly honest she liked the name as well.

Archie decided to skip the mobile phones for the new arrivals, after experiencing Luna's reaction he left that pleasure to Hermione and Harry; so he started telling them about the new portable portals. It took practically no time for Padma to realise what this device could do, so she started scrolling through the menu list until she found the Potter properties and she soon found the one in Goa.

"Harry, what do you know about this house in Goa?"

He looked totally bemused, "Absolutely Nothing." He said, "Ask Hannah, I have just nominated her as our resident property expert, her obvious brilliance in the subject did find the house in Barbados after all." The girl in question was nodding her head, blushing like a tomato and smiling widely, she came over to him clipping him across the back of his head then giving him a searing kiss.

Jill had started scrolling through pages on what looked like a laptop computer, she started reading, "Potter residence Goa, warded seventy five acre park like grounds with over five hundred yards of private beach. Opulent three story villa with all of the usual facilities, lighting, lifts etc., thirty bedroom suites with cooling charms. Entry last update; January 1981.

"So this information is about sixteen years old, would you like us to send some maintenance people there, we could send some to Barbados as well, if you want. Also if your newly anointed property expert would send us a list we could give anywhere else you might like to visit, the once over as well, thinking about it our list could well be easier to use than yours."

With Luna looking over her shoulder Hermione, who had seen what Padma had done with her portal maker, started checking through her own portable portal; that was until she saw Jill's laptop, Luna carrying Lauren followed Hermione to look at the computer over Jill's shoulder.

Harry could see that things were starting to get a little out of hand so he said, "You're all here quite a bit early, aren't you? I thought that you lot were going to the beach?"

In their defence Parvati said, "I think that I was just as impatient as these four when I was their age." So after a lot of giggling, squealing and kissing, especially of Harry, they all departed through a portal, very proudly, created by Susan with her new portable portal maker.

Peace.

It didn't last very long.

"Harry?"

Harry looked at the First Among Equals and said, "Yes Hermione, you can have a laptop like Jill's and if you are a good girl, it will have all of the Potter property information in it as well as lots of other wonderful programmes and information."

She had decided that she didn't care if he could read her like a book if it was going to get her a laptop like Jill's, so she gave him a huge smile.

Joe grinned, "We don't actually do the laptops, they come from Silicon Valley in the states, the Yanks will be coming with the Canadians who do the desktops, they should be here at about noon your time; Harry has quite a few of both already on order for all of his girls. What you were looking at isn't actually in Jill's laptop, it is on a central server and all of the laptops and desktops will have full access to the Potter personal database as well as the Potter Industries database, this laptop can only access the bits of it Potters Portals might need.

"It should have been said in the beginning that everything runs off ambient magic and there is always enough ambient magic to activate the crystals; the electrical outlets going into the south west tower work off it as well and even the desktops have their own ambient magic power supply built in.

"I suppose that we could do the house phones next; they are pretty similar to the mobile phones but being in a closed system they don't need the range and I suggest that you get at least one or two of your elves keyed into them as well. Elves don't have wands so you get them to hold a Potter generic wand, _(he tossed a couple to Harry for him to keep)_ and touch the phone base unit, the selected elves will then be able to answer any one of the phones if none of you are there. This is not too important at the moment because no one else you know has a phone, but in a year or two there will be a lot of them about . . . we hope.

"Any questions?" nobody seemed to have any so he continued, "I will make a guess that Hermione is the only one among you that has ever used a Fax Machine. _(Hermione was nodding, so he continued speaking mainly to her.)_ Well I don't think that I need say very much, you seem ok with the phones and one fax machine is pretty much like any other except that this one uses magic and if the worst comes to the worst there is always the dreaded instruction book. Muggles treat instruction books like Luna treats her phone, but strangely enough wizards love them, still the book is always there when all else fails.

"Well that's it, any questions?"

Immediately Hermione asked, "My parents are muggles, how will they get on with all of this stuff?"

Archie decided to answer her, "Generally like the elves, if they use one of the Potter generic wand on a mobile phone or a house phone it will be keyed to them, the same for keying them into the international portal system, but they are not Potters so they won't be able to activate the portable portals or anything else dedicated to the family. Nominated senior Potters Portal staff have keys which override the Potter restriction, but these are user specific and every Ministry we have ever dealt with would go ape if they discovered a pair of muggles with them. However you could key trusted family elves to them and they could look after your parents, from what Harry said I believe that you are looking for work for several elves. Get two of the longer serving ones to look after your parents and give a few of the new ones job's, for the magic to work they must remain Potter elves, it shouldn't be a problem for you."

Luna mused, "Why must the elves remain Potter elves . . . the dedicated Potter magic would exclude them if they were part of any other family . . . fine." She had satisfied herself so that was ok.

Joe took out his mobile, he said to Luna, "You know that Bert the installation foreman is in your south west tower, it is over a thousand miles away and I need to talk to him." She looked worried but she nodded, very obviously he opened the mobile and pushed a button, holding the phone to his ear he said, "Hi Bert it's Joe, how are you getting on?"

A distant squeaky noise came from the phone for about three and a half minutes and then Joe said, "We'll see you tomorrow then. Bye."

"Squeak." From the mobile and then Joe closed it.

Luna was looking a lot less pensive and emphasising Joe's point, Harry said to her, "Bert is in our south west tower, that has to be fifteen hundred miles away and Joe has just found out how he is getting on with what he has to do, there is no floo either here or in the tower and Bert's mobile was in his pocket; now Joe is going to tell us what he has found out."

Luna gave him a small smile, "Thank you Harry . . . and if you ever tell anybody what happened when Hermione first rang my phone I will set the Weaslewobbler on you."

Hermione and Harry started giggling and Luna was grinning, the four visitors were understandably looking confused.

Joe cleared his throat and said, "Well the upgrades to the south west tower are nearly finished, Bert had to call in another three of his team from Oz and they brought all of the parts they needed from the Australian warehouse. There are a bunch of people in the tower from Harrods doing some interior decorating and he has put power outlets everywhere they wanted them and a couple of paired spares in each room; he also gave your elf a couple of dozen more, in case you need them in the main house. You know that you can always call me if you want any more."

Hermione worried, "How do you want us to pay for all of this?"

The four chuckled and Sam said, "You don't actually pay. The company is totally owned by the Potters so at the end of the year all of the profits are paid into the Potter account; the time and materials we have expended today will be tallied, at cost, entered in the books and the annual profit will be that much less. That's how it works for all of the Potter companies."

Harry had been watching Hermione, "Hermione, I can see the gleam in your eyes so before you get carried away let me tell you something which I only found out about and I think that it was by accident whilst talking to Silicon Valley.

"Even if I say something like; 'There's no hurry but if you have the time could you put together, eleven laptops and get onto Vancouver and ask them to do the same with desktops. Oh, and could you make sure that they all talk to each other?' That is virtually verbatim what I said, the answer I received was, 'I heard that the Aussies are coming to see you the day after tomorrow?' so I said 'Yes!' so he said, 'They'll be ready by then'.

_(The four from Australia had started giggling.)_

"Now I may be new to this captain of industry jag, but I thought. We can't be making much profit if they can, in a day and a half put together what amounts twenty two computer systems that are currently a good few thousand miles apart; so I asked the biggie, 'Aren't you very busy?'

"I am not sure if I was supposed to get this bit of the truth, 'If a Potter asks for something we just drop everything else until it's done.' Now when it was just my mum and dad that was alright, but now there's nine of us and it won't be long before we add the four orphans, then it will be seventeen's instead of eleven's; but I refuse to feel guilty about them liking prime numbers."

Hermione interrupted, "I understand, we must make sure that they don't take some nebulous request as an urgent order from the almighty."

He smiled, "That's about the size of it."

Jill tried to hide a yawn and Joe said, "As much as we love you all, we from down under have been at it for what seems like forever so we should be on our way; Bert said that he would go straight home so we don't have to go and find him; is there anything else?"

Sam said to Hermione, "If you can find those obsolete manuals and either destroy them or get them to me and we'll do it, it was awesome meeting you."

With some thankful goodbyes from the cohort the Australians left.

**-x-**

When they had arrived home from Switzerland they had brought the twenty three way phone system, he activated the base unit and had the elves distribute eight of the handsets to the wives rooms and one to his room. Then the four senior elves touched the Potter generic wand to the base unit allowing each of them the ability to answer the phones, Zen suggested they add the cook which they did, the cook normally held herself apart from the other elves.

The elves also collected the twenty two computers which the Americans and the Canadians had brought to Geneva and they brought them to the Pottery. A laptop and a desktop computer was put into Harry's and each of the wives bedrooms; one of the desktop computers was put into the library and the other three units were put into Hermione's parents room.

As they were finishing sorting out the house phone system, Tracey and Daphne arrived home from the meeting at Amelia's house and Daphne proceeded to give a report on what had been a generally productive day. She told them that the only outstanding thing of note of any concern to him, was that Amelia wanted his approval for the new Director of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement.

She gave a summary of the day, "The metamorphmagus, who introduced herself as 'call me by my first name and die' Tonks Black was there, she is now a Senior Auror and there was also a very rude individual called Rufus Scrimgeour there, he is the current Head of the Auror office. He didn't appear to like females and before anyone was introduced he started off by saying that if he had known that he was being invited to a trollop party he wouldn't have come. So I politely informed him that none of the Ladies present were trollops and in fact three of them were the Ladies of Most Noble and Most Ancient Houses so he should immediately apologise to all of us.

"Well that went down a bit like a lead balloon and he called me a skanky chit; fortunately the French doors were open behind him so I banished him to the middle of Amelia's pond, it was only about four hundred yards so I didn't bother to use my wand. I suppose that it was lucky that we had all stopped giggling before he came stomping back across the veranda; Amelia stopped him before he came, dripping pond water, back into the room and told him to go home and cool off.

"The idiot was having none of it and he told Amelia that he wanted to challenge my Lord to an honour duel; so Amelia asked him if he was certain because I was the Lady Daphne Ophelia Merlin Potter Slytherin and in case he was too dim to realise it my Lord was you. Well she gave him your whole collection of names and titles then finished off by saying that if he still didn't realise it, my Lord was Harry Potter the man who killed Voldemort.

"I have never seen it before, but he actually went grey before he stomped off, I suppose that it would be in order for you to challenge him to a duel if you wanted to, or better still ask him publicly if he wanted to challenge you to one, he would probably have to change his underwear.

"Anyway to get back to the subject, Amelia wanted to know if you thought Tonks would be alright as the Director of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement and tomorrow morning would be time enough to give her an answer. Actually I think that Tonks was quite surprised by the whole affair . . . well very surprised by the suggestion and she did really well for the rest of the meeting."

Harry told the pair of them that they had done really well and the cohort had to be a kind of team effort, so if they thought that Tonks would be ok then it was fine with him.

Hermione and Harry then started teaching the happy pair of witches about the new Potter portable portal maker, it was obvious that Hermione thought that it was wonderful.

**-x-**

At last it was peaceful in the library, it was where Harry, Hermione and Daphne were sat on a large sofa, the only thing that could be considered the least bit unusual was that Hermione was sitting in the middle. In front of them on a low, transfigured table were three laptop computers, Hermione was in the middle because she was the only one who was the least bit computer literate, so she was kind of teaching the other two how to use theirs.

The orphans and the rest of the cohort had been banned from the room; the Americans and the Canadians had brought the twenty two computers they had promised but it was the other things the Silicon Valley mob had brought which had caused the problem. To say that the people from the Valley were strange would be being very kind, they had volunteered to set up a monitoring programme on the US military spy satellites to help Luna find some crumpled horn snorkacks . . . weird. Harry had stopped Hermione having a go at them for tapping into military satellites, it really made her think when he reminded her that all the military was going to use them for was to decide what to fire nuclear missiles at, snorkacks hunting had to be much more useful than that.

It wasn't so much a problem per se as the horrendous din; they had brought seventeen hand held games machines, with twenty three games in each of them; thank goodness the games in all of them were the same, they had to be so that everyone could play against each other. She had been going to tell them to take them back but Luna had already been shown how to play pokemon and she just knew that the world was about to go to Scunthorpe in a hand cart. The ruddy things could be sold as random noise generators, they were very easy to use and it had only taken a couple of minutes for Luna to teach everyone who hadn't been in Switzerland how to operate them. It had only taken a couple more minutes for the various battles to commence and subsequently for the games machines to be banned, permanently, from the library.

The trio believed that the hoard had moved onto Harry's bed, if this was the case and they were still playing when he went to bed the hand held games consoles would be banned from his room as well. Hermione had suggested that the importation of them should be banned, Daphne simply said that Hermione would have the pleasure of telling Lauren that it was her that had had them banned; as brave as she was Hermione wasn't brave enough for that; she really liked being mummy Mione.

Helping Daphne and Harry didn't occupy her completely and she took to thinking: her dad Dan, had bought a new computer about three weeks previously, it had taken her and her dad about four hours to get it all out of the various boxes and what with the cables and things put it together and that was with her mum reading the, atrocious, instructions. It had taken her the best part of the next two days to get all of the software into the thing so that it was up and running, she had left it to her mum and dad to transfer all of the data they wanted loaded into it. Unwilling to provoke further dissention she hadn't said anything to her mum, but, although she had done her best, the cables at the back of the machine were still like a pile of spaghetti.

Their company in Canada had obviously had problems with the wizarding world's lack of technical understanding and had decided to do something to circumvent the whole thing and Potter Industries appeared to have wand touch off to a fine art. Each computer work station came in a very large box with a feather light charm on it and the instructions, of which there were only two, were printed in very large letters on the outside.

Place this box against the wall where you want the computer to be with this notice facing where you want to sit. _Harry had helped her to do this; although, with the weight reduction charms, it would have been very easy for her to do this on her own. _

Touch your wand to the spot and take a couple of steps backwards. _You could not possibly mistake the spot, it was bright orange with black bulls eye rings around it and written across it was; 'THE SPOT' in brilliant lime green. She had done as instructed and they both took a couple of steps backwards. _

The box vanished, it was obviously no longer needed; a wooden work station, that matched her room in both style and colour, grew up from the floor with the CPU to the bottom left with what looked like a laser printer above it. To the right of the desk which was now just over five foot wide was an open shelf with three draws under it; to the back was a twenty inch, slim, flat screen monitor with speakers built in either side of it; she didn't either know or care if it was LED, TFT or anything else, it looked great. Out of the front of the box had grown and rolled a very comfortable looking computer chair, she would find that the chair would magically adjust to fit her when she sat on it. On the desktop was a keyboard, a mouse on a mouse mat and quite a thick instruction manual; however far more tempting was the silver spot on the front of the CPU with an illusionary sign floating in front of it saying, 'Touch Wand here to Start or Stop your Computer'.

_At this point they had had to go down stairs because Tracey and Daphne had just come back from Amelia's._

There were no leads . . . anywhere, her mum would want one of these for her dad, she hadn't actually copped it but her mum had moaned at her for two weeks about all of the leads behind her dad's new computer. The brightest witch of the age realised that it was her dad's computer when her mum was complaining about it, at any other time it was their computer, she thought that her dad knew this as well but he wasn't exactly a coward but he didn't like sleeping on the couch.

The laptops that had come from Silicon Valley were brilliant, the first thing you had to do was to touch it with your wand and say your name and then it wouldn't open for anybody else and told anyone else who tried 'This is _(Insert Name Here)_ Computer'. The screen seemed to be about sixteen inches and the key board had a number pad like a normal computer keyboard that was one of her gripes about laptop's covered, the other main thing she normally didn't like about laptop's were the touchpad's, they never did what she wanted. The touchpad on these seemed to do whatever you were thinking, so she had decided to try it, she just put her finger on the pad and thought of what she wanted the cursor to do and it just did it, the crew from Silicon Valley might be weird but they were geniuses as well. Now she knew how Jill had managed to scroll through those pages so quickly, she just thought about what she wanted to see and the laptop did it all for you.

Earlier on Harry had been very cruel to her, he had not let her start her desktop computer, he had had the cheek to say that if she sat in that comfy looking chair in front of it and touched her wand to that silver spot she would still be sitting there at Christmas. She knew that he was wrong, she would get hungry long before her birthday and that was in the middle of September and anyway they had to go to the Wizengamot tomorrow. She'd thought that to teach him a lesson _(she wasn't sure what lesson)_ she'd sulk and pout, so she did; it lasted less than three minutes and he hadn't even noticed, he'd dragged her into the library and she had seen her laptop, she couldn't help it, she kissed him.

Blast that man he had won again, she would have to get some lessons off her mother, mind you none of the other wives did any better than her, usually they did a lot worse, except maybe Luna and that was by being so off the wall that Harry just gave up with . . .

The noise from Harry's laptop startled her out of her reverie, he was watching the opening credits of Star Wars episode four, Daphne was craning over to try to see as well, "Where did you find that?"

He looked sheepish, "I saw this thing called Feature Films so I selected it and there's hundreds of films, so I picked this one, oh and these popped out." He held a pair of earplug type earphones, "I suppose that if I put them in the speakers would switch off."

He was right, there was just about every film she had ever even heard of, she realised why her desktop had those large speakers either side of the screen. Also thinking about it the screen was slightly wider than normal, it might be twenty two inch, whatever it was a lot bigger than the laptop and the sound would inevitability be better.

Smirking she said, "You haven't set up your other computer yet, have you?"

What his laptop was doing stopped and it shut down, "I'm going to do that now."

The girls had shut down their laptops as well and all three went up to his room, where they found nobody, but there were ten of the hand held gaming machines on the bed.

There was a burst of squealing and giggling from his bathroom so they went to investigate,

In the bath they found six naked members of the cohort, four naked orphans and four smiling, soaking wet elves, Padma worked her way over towards them she stood and with a big smile said, "The elves told us that the young ones needed a bath because they were still salty from the sea in Barbados . . . so we decided to help, we were salty as well."

Daphne was smiling from ear to ear when she asked, "And this is helping . . . how?"

Smiling thoughtfully she answered, "Well Ben is never going to have to wonder what girls look like under their clothes."

Smirking Harry said, "Then I hope for his sake that he doesn't have too good a memory . . . if he compares most anyone he meets in the future with you lot he will likely be sorely disappointed."

The three left when Susan lifted Lauren up behind Hannah so that she could pour a jug of water over her head, the racket had restarted before they managed to get the door closed and deaden the noise a little.

Five minutes later it appeared as if Daphne thought that Harry had finally cracked, he was walking around looking at two of the walls in his bedroom, if it wasn't for the fact that Hermione was doing pretty much the same thing she would be really worried. He settled on looking at the wall to the left as you came in the door and said, "This one I think?"

Still confusing Daphne, Hermione answered, "It's close but I think that you're right."

The scene was interrupted by four orphans who were now dry and in clean clothes, they came charging out of the bathroom and accosted all three of them to get some kisses and cuddles. The orphans were followed more sedately by six mostly naked young ladies, they could only be described as mostly naked because the Patil twins were both wearing towels done up in a weird kind of turban thingy around their hair, none of the others were wearing anything at all. Having received their loving ministrations from those who had not been in the bath, the four littlest dashed over to the bed and retrieved their games and sprinted out of the door. No doubt they were going to find somewhere to battle for control of the universe, or something as equally inconsequential; the four smiling elves had followed them.

Hannah said, "Those four make me tired just watching them and I refuse to admit that I was probably worse at their age." Noticing Harry she added, "What are you doing, Harry?"

It was Daphne who answered, "He is about to set up his big computer and I am sure that he will wait for you all to put some clothes on, if you would like to watch."

Tracey smirked, "Unlike you I am not so old that wearing clothes helps me to watch things, so carry on Harry we like watching you whether you are clothed or not."

Harry decided to ignore the six naked girls who were watching him, the Patil sisters had removed their turbans, he had manoeuvred the big box to where he wanted his computer and touched the spot with his wand.

Fundamentally the same thing happened as when Hermione had activated hers, but she queried, "The wood in this room is light oak and this unit matches it and the wood in my room is medium oak and my unit matches that clever . . . why is your screen a lot bigger than mine?"

"How am I supposed to know that," he sounded put out, "although I was thinking of watching films when I touched the spot."

Susan reminded them, "You never did really explain what films were the other day."

He sat in his chair and touched his wand to the start button, it was illuminated the same way as the one on Hermione's computer had been, the screen lit up with the film directory.

He sat in his chair and everyone saw it mould itself to fit him.

As he put his hand onto his mouse, he was thinking of Star Wars again and the film list scrolled down until the cursor was pointing at Episode Four so he clicked the only button on the mouse and the stereo surround sound started along with the film.

The film had played as far as C3PO and R2D2 parting company in the desert when Hermione said, "That's a film, it will go on for about two hours and we have things to teach you all, so Harry you should turn it off."

Emily crawled onto Harry's lap and said, "You go to other room for teach we want to watch story."

None of them had noticed the children coming into the room, they had come when the opening music had alerted them that something was going on, it sounded exciting and they were missing it.

Luna sealed matters, "You're showing them the new portkeys and the telephones, so I will look after this lot." The four orphans crawled all over mummy Lulu and started taking turns to kiss her.

Hermione was slightly put out as they moved back to the library, she liked being mummy Mione but they had so much to do and somebody had to keep them pointing in the right direction.

Lauren came rushing down the stairs and pulled Hermione so that she could put her arms around her neck, she kissed her on the cheek and said, "We knows that you is busy now but we all loves you and soon you will be able to play as well." The little one let go and went charging back up the stairs shouting, "Me missing story."

A wide smile graced Hermione's face and she said, "Do you think that Lauren is psychic? I was feeling really down about keeping everybody moving in the right direction and not playing with the orphans."

Padma cuddled her, "I have kind of noticed some little things as well, so we should just keep an eye on her."

**-x-**

All of them knew how the old portable portal maker worked, they also knew how the fixed portals worked; so it wasn't too difficult to teach them all how the new portable portals worked. The addition of the integrated menu of all of the Potter properties and Potter Industries destinations actually made them almost as easy to use as the original single destination unit.

Not wishing to encounter a repeat of the problem they had had with Luna, they decided that it would be Harry and Hermione who would first demonstrate the portable telephones. Using their own phones they stood in front of the six girls and explained what they were doing before they did it and demonstrated the result to the group. He then took half of the girls to the far end of the library and they went through the whole procedure again using the girls own phones to make calls back an forward to each other. The final phase was for Harry and three of the girls to go to Barbados and then for everyone to call everyone else again, the girls had learned what they needed to know and they realised just how useful the phones could be; Susan and Hannah had both called Luna and also talked to the orphans.

The whole cohort now knew how the telephones and the new portable portals worked, they had all seen something of the desktop computers working although seven of the girls were still to activate theirs, the same could be said for six of the girls and their laptops. However all of them knew what they needed to do to activate their computers.

All in all it had been a pretty good day, they had all learned something and some of them had learned quite a bit; it was quite difficult to believe just how quickly everything was moving.

Things had been moving at a frantic pace, so next they had to get tomorrow over with and then, with a little bit of good fortune, things would take on a more reasonable pace, hopefully this would include a lot of time on the beach.

**-x-**

It was getting on for bedtime and the cohort were the only ones in the library, Tracey asked something which had been in the back of all of their minds, "What are we going to do about Hogwarts in September?"

Very quickly opting out of any discussion Harry simply said, "As long as we're together I'm easy."

It had been silent, if it hadn't been it would be now; eventually everyone looked at Hermione.

"Why are you all looking at me?"

Daphne was feeling brave, "Well you always seem to be very keen on school and as you are the first amongst equals, so we thought that we would get your ideas first."

There was an unusual expression on Hermione's face, she looked confused, it was actually a very endearing look for her, "My first thought was that we have to go back; my second thought was sod that I want to practice getting pregnant and lie on the beach, in any order or both at the same time I'm not in the least bit fussy; my third thought was that we can't go back, we have moved beyond anything Hogwarts has to offer.

"Previously I had wondered if, when the time came, the thought of not going back would be depressing but it isn't really, in its own way it's a kind of a relief, but I won't get to snog Harry in a broom cupboard, I will settle for having him snog me on the beach instead . . . if Lauren will allow it.

"I always wanted to be Head Girl and if we went back there isn't much doubt that I would be Head Girl, but now it wouldn't really mean anything to me, so let someone else, who would appreciate it, have it, I don't need it any more. Ages ago . . . well it seems like it . . . Harry said that if any of us wanted to learn anything we could always get tutors; short of a bit more about the Potter runes I can't think of anything else and I know that we need to know more about government and traditions and stuff like that . . . but that will come with time . . . if we want it to.

"If one of the prats in the Ministry noticed that we were putting some effort into learning that sort of thing they would think that we wanted to be in charge and they are generally such a lazy bunch that they would let us . . . and I for one don't want that.

"I have Harry and really I don't need anything else.

"With all of my titles the only one I would never want to lose is Mrs Potter.

"Someone else's turn."

With a small smile Padma opined, "I think that you just about said it all, for all of us, we have Harry and we don't really need anything else. Hannah told some of us earlier that she had given the location of over thirty houses to Sam, she said that they all seemed to be in interesting places and she wanted to know what a 'Mall' was because there are another twenty or so, mainly penthouse flats, near various ones."

Harry said, with a smirk, "If we answer that question we will lose Parvati . . . forever."

With a very prim expression Parvati poked her tongue out at him and answered, "There is nothing that could ever keep me away from all of you forever."

With a superior smile, Hermione clarified, "They are huge shopping complexes with maybe twenty or thirty dress shops and the same number of shoe shops and handbag shops and other things like that, not much that you would really like."

Looking closely at Parvati then shaking her head Padma grinned, "You have broken her and it might only be curable by taking her to one of these 'Mall' thingies and letting her run riot for a few hours; you weren't joking were you?" the sincerity of the last bit was said with a big grin which rather spoiled it.

Looking very serious, Hermione said, "I don't really like them but my mum seems to, so I have only ever been in ten or fifteen of them and really if you ignore the names on the shops and what they call themselves they were all very nearly identical.

"A collection of ladies apparel all bunched together under one roof, for myself I don't really like them, they all seem to be very commercial and highly impersonal.

"So the answer to your question is 'yes' the description I gave was the truth; sometime soon we should go and look at a few and you will see what I mean, they try to make up with quantity for their lack of taste and quality."

There was silence for a few minutes and Daphne asked, "So, does anyone want to go back to Hogwarts?"

Luna had one of her smiles, "We all do . . . except for Parvati . . . she just wants to go to some shopping Malls."

"And just why do the rest of us want to go back to Hogwarts?" Susan wasn't at all sure that she wanted to return to the school.

Looking unusually serious she answered, "Well it was Hermione who gave me the idea and I figured that we would all like to snog Harry in at least one of the broom cupboards and Hermione would also like to have a serious try at getting pregnant in the restricted section of the library."

There was a note of resignation in Hannah's voice as she said, "Now we've two of them broken."

Tracey smirked, "Shall we get this pair up to bed then?"

Daphne didn't look too happy, "We need to put them either side of Harry and with a bit of luck they will be alright in the morning." Tonight it had been her turn next to Harry.

However Daphne had been correct, come morning they were both fine.

**Second Authors Note:** A big thank you to everybody who reviewed the last chapter, they were all very much appreciated.


	6. Chapter 6

Disclaimer; We should all give thanks to J. K. Rowling for providing us with such a wonderful set of characters for our story's; I simply wish that I was capable of making better use of them.

**Day 06 **

_**It is Wednesday the fourth of August and the time is 06:30 **_

Very early in the morning Harry had climbed out from between Parvati and Hermione to go to the bathroom before he had quickly showered, dressed himself and gone down to the library.

There were several things he would like to be done so he phoned Jill, the attractive, young secretary in Australia and asked her if Potter Industries already made a computer type thing to play films for young children.

Giggling she teasingly she told him that he could have checked that on his computer; then she reminded him that it was Canada that made that kind of thing.

So he came back and told her that as they all were going to the Wizengamot this morning and he didn't really have a clue but it might take all day and just because it was three in the morning over there, the Canadians were still asleep.

She became serious and asked him if he wanted one for each of the four lovely children she had met the day before, telling him also that as the children grew older the machines could be gradually morphed into proper computers.

Harry admitted that he hadn't thought about all of that so then he decided that they should have five; one for their communal room and one each for their bedrooms.

Jill agreed then told him that they were stock items and she would have the Canadians deliver five to Switzerland sometime this afternoon. He asked for some more Potter generic wands and Jill promised that she would see to getting some to Switzerland herself.

When he had finished with Jill he called Zen and asked if it would be possible for the orphans to have a room each but to still keep the room with their large bed. Zen told him that the room with the large bed had been specially chosen for just this eventuality and all of the rooms would be ready by this evening, if the children wanted them.

**-x-**

Things were about as ready as they could be, the nanny elves could operate the computer well enough to select the next film if the orphans didn't like what they were watching. Hermione had created a play list of thirty children's films and left to its own devices it would run for more than forty five hours, this should be well long enough. The children also had their games machines to keep them occupied and the elves knew how to pop to the Wizengamot chamber if something seriously untoward happened.

Each of the cohort was wearing their finest family robes and they were all wearing their family rings; in addition Harry had a ring box with all of the extra rings he had acquired by conquest finally they were all carrying their staves. Unbeknown to anyone not in the cohort they were each carrying both a portable telephone and a portable portal, if it became necessary they could evacuate their friends very quickly. Although they all thought that most probably the greatest danger would be from the collapsing Ministry building as they blasted some stupid old idiots out of existence.

Amelia had given them a portkey timed for eight fifteen, it would take them directly to her office in the Department of Magical Law Enforcement and they were all holding it as it activated.

Their landing in Amelia's office was very gentle and Hermione looked at him, "Did you slow our landing down." He thought that he might well be in trouble so he just nodded; she kissed him and said, "Thank you it was very comfortable, you will have to teach me how to do that." Harry thought that he was never going to understand girls.

What he didn't know was that all eight of his girls had conferred and agreed that he should never be allowed to understand girls, if they could help it, so they were actively working at being inconsistent in their own individual ways.

The office now held seventeen people, five of whom did not have rings entitling them to enter and vote in the Wizengamot, Harry let all five borrow one of his surplus rings, curing both of these problems. The rings would be returned at the end of the day, or as soon as they were given the position of a Departmental Director in the Ministry. As soon as Amelia was elected Minister her intention was to appoint Adrian and Eleanor Greengrass as Senior Undersecretaries and Tonks to be Director of Magical Law Enforcement; these positions were the Minister's to allocate and nobody could seriously challenge the appointments.

The feeling amongst them was that this was when the real fun would start, there might be a small exchange of words when the party first entered the chamber, but without a leader or a Minister of Magic the Wizengamot was toothless, it had no mandate to govern. So there had to be two votes by ring to make the Wizengamot active, there was nobody officially to count a show of hands so voting had to be done using the 'yes', 'no', 'abstain' sockets set in the small table in front of each seat.

In recent years had become common practice to vote by a show of hands, this allowed Malfoy and his ilk to pin point targets for future intimidation; henceforth ring voting, which to all intents and purposes was secret, would become the order of the day. For the day Percy Weasley had been appointed as the Wizengamot recorder, if this promotion was to become permanent he would need to do a good job and it would then need to be confirmed by the new 'Royal Witch'.

The party of seventeen were joined by an escort of eight aurors as they made their way to the Wizengamot chamber, traditionally there was a charm on the door which prevented anyone not carrying a ring, or otherwise authorised, from entering the chamber. At the instigation of Malfoy, Fudge and Dumbledore the charm had been removed, supposedly to allow them entrance when they were late, Fudge particularly liked to make an entrance by arriving a few minutes late.

Today all of the charms were back where they were meant to be and any member arriving late or without their ring would not be able to enter the chamber. The exceptions to the rule, such as; four members of the British and the International Press; Aurors on active duty; also the usual Ministry party of five Amelia being the only one to survive the purge. These people all carried special magical passes which allowed them access, as did the Recorder.

Streaming into the room the group took up seats, almost filling one side of the horseshoe shaped room, there was a fair bit of mumbling from the other side of the room but nobody was brave enough to stand and challenge any of the newcomers. The session was scheduled to commence at nine and at that time the doors would magically close and any member's not present would miss the session.

All of the family Head's Amelia had expected to see were present; although under Fudge they had become lax, today they were all here before time; it did however appear that the eldest member's of several families had handed power over to their heir's. The rumours she had started seemed to have had an effect; it hinted at vast changes to the Ministry and those being wilfully obstructive to progress, would find themselves in trouble. There was no rumour as to what the trouble might take the form of, which in itself was even more worrying for them.

It was nine o'clock so the doors closed.

Amelia stood, "As Director of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement I am the senior member of the Government present; therefore I must first petition you all to establish a Leader for the Wizengamot. The previous 'Royal Wizard' one Albus Percival Brian Wulfric Dumbledore has been declared forfeit by Higher Magic along with many other, mainly supporters of Voldemort some of whom at one time graced this chamber. _(This produced a rumbling from those who had already been present.)_

"Are there any nominations for the position of 'Royal Witch' or 'Royal Wizard'?"

Eleanor Greengrass stood and said, "I nominate Augusta Longbottom for the position of The Royal Witch." She sat.

The Lady Black stood and said, "Seconded."

Percy had been briefed, so he stood and asked, "I must apologize but I do not know the name of the witch who seconded the motion?"

With great emphasis, Amelia said, "She is the Lady Tracey Merlin Potter Black." This produced another, slightly louder, rumble from the far side of the chamber.

Percy nodded his thanks and after a short pause Amelia continued, "Are there any further nominations?"

There was silence and after about thirty seconds Amelia said, "Then I call the matter to vote."

There were forty one votes in favour of Augusta there were none against, she had won comfortably, so she moved to the position on the floor reserved for the Chief Witch: she stood and said, "First I should thank all of you who voted for me, so thank you.

"Next we move to the matter for which this session was originally convened, I am asking for nominations for the position of Minister for Magic."

Hermione stood and said, "I nominate Amelia Bones currently the Head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement and for the benefit of our Recorder I am the Lady Hermione Jane Galadriel Merlin Potter, the first amongst equals." Those on the far side of the chamber were still stunned as she sat.

Daphne stood she was glowing, she was obviously in her element and enjoying herself, she said, "Seconded and once again for the benefit of our recorder I am the Lady Daphne Ophelia Merlin Potter Slytherin." She sat.

There was silence for about thirty seconds, so Augusta stood and asked, "Are there any more nominations for the position of Minister of Magic?"

All of those they had thought might have provided opposition appeared to be in shock and about six foot out of their depth, nobody had said anything so she continued, "If there are no further nominations, I call the matter to vote."

This time there were forty five votes in favour, everybody had voted for her, so Amelia moved to the position reserved for the Minister for Magic; she stood and said, "I thank everybody for voting for me.

"There are now several things I must do; firstly I appoint Senior Auror Nymphadora Black Tonks to be my replacement as the Director of Magical Law Enforcement."

As Tonks moved to the seat recently vacated by Amelia, a man on the other side of the room stood and the Chief Witch said, "Lord Falmouth, do you have a comment?"

"Well it is just that I thought that Rufus Scrimgeour was the next in line for the Director of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement job and I was wondering whether there was a particular reason he hadn't been appointed?"

Amelia smiled, "A very fair question. He was invited to a meeting yesterday to discuss the available senior staffing positions which would need be to be filled if I were to win this position.

"Well in short order he managed to insult Lady Longbottom, Lady Marchbanks, Lady Greengrass, Lady Slytherin, Lady Black, the betrothed of the Lord Peverell and Croker also myself. We did not think that this was someone who would be an asset as the Director of a major department in the British Ministry of Magic, the job requires that at times he would be called upon to represent all of us and I wouldn't trust him to represent me. I have personally worried for some time that he was not really suitable as the Chief auror and I would be open to the idea of Senior Auror Kingsley Shacklebolt being promoted, were it to be suggested by the new Director of the DMLE."

There was a general muttering to the tune of 'quite right too', nodding his acceptance Lord Falmouth sat back down, Scrimgeour was quite well known for his abrasive and somewhat rude manner. Also it was apparent that nobody seemed to be unduly concerned that Scrimgeour's well known unpleasant attitude might well have cost him more than just the promotion.

Amelia continued, "Under Minister Fudge with prompting, interference and bickering from both Lucius Malfoy and Albus Dumbledore, the British wizarding world has been allowed to become something of a shambles. Now frankly we and the majority of the rest of our European neighbours are a laughing stock in the rest of the magical world and I don't like being laughed at. _(She wasn't the least bit worried about borrowing words from Hermione.)_

"Currently the only European country with any credibility in the rest of the world is Switzerland and a few days ago I was given a small demonstration of some of the reasons this is so. I travelled first to Switzerland and as soon as I recovered from the trip I was transported Barbados, four thousand miles, instantly, with no ill effects whatsoever, using a portal. _(It was the truth and at this time as much of it as the other members needed.)_

"Switzerland is the only European country to not have banned portals and now having travelled by one I can fully understand why other Magic World leaders wish to use them and refuse to use portkeys to come this country. So there are going to be some radical changes within our society and to guide us through the morass, for the foreseeable future there will be two Senior Undersecretaries.

"I am appointing Adrian Greengrass as Senior Undersecretary with responsibility for the running and restructuring of the Ministry of Magic and I also appoint Eleanor Greengrass as Senior Undersecretary responsible for matters outside the Ministry." They both moved to the seats that were slightly behind and to the left and right of the Minister, both of them placed some papers on the lectern's in front of their seats.

"Lastly, for the time being I am creating a Department of Education which will have overall authority for the content and standard of all Education in the British Wizarding World."

There was a very irate looking woman standing before Amelia had even finished; Augusta said calmly, "Lady Fitzpatrick, you have a comment?"

"As you well know, I am the chairwoman of the Hogwarts Board of Governors and we have the authority over what is or isn't taught in Hogwarts and how it is taught."

This time it was Harry who was stood before Lady Fitzpatrick had finished, with a small smile Augusta said, "You have something to say, my Lord Merlin?"

"For the benefit of the recorder and Lady Fitzpatrick, I am Lord Harry James Merlin Gryffindor Hufflepuff Ravenclaw Slytherin Black Potter and I declare the Hogwarts school Board of Governors to be forfeit."

There were expressions of outrage all across the far side of the room, Harry stood waiting patiently until the Chief Witch had restored order and then he continued, "You and they can complain about it all you want to, it does not alter the facts; none of the current Board were elected in the manner prescribed by the Hogwarts charter, neither were the candidates accepted by Hogwarts herself as being worthy, ergo they are forfeit.

"Albus 'Greater Good' Dumbledore frequently flouted the law and changed approved rules for his own ends, as it suited him and you acted like a flock of sheep, you couldn't be bothered to engage your brains and allowed him to do whatever he wanted to. He was not able to alter the ancient charter so he stuck it in a drawer and helped you forget about it, the great manipulator then, ignoring those around him, proceeded to do precisely what he wanted to do.

"As the Head of the four founder families I declare you forfeit and Lady Marchbanks I also believe that the sorting hat has been compromised, again by Dumbledore, we will need to check it.

"Please carry on Madam Minister."

There was an embarrassed silence, eventually Amelia said "Well I learned something, I can only imagine how you all feel.

"The Director of the newly formed Department of Education will be Madam Griselda Marchbanks, oh and please make particular note that the new Department is called Education and not Magical Education. We live on a planet where we are outnumbered by something in excess of a thousand to one by non magical people and if we continue to ignore them we will soon cease to exist; I was going to say that our children need to be properly educated; it is all of us who need to be properly educated."

As the other three new appointees had done before her Griselda handed her ring back to the cohort and then, as the newly appointed Director of Education moved to the final Government seat, the Royal Witch said, "We have been in session for nearly an hour and a half so we will break for a few minutes for some light refreshments."

**-x-**

Because the Wizengamot was still in session the entrance doors remained closed, anyone who left would not be able to re-enter the chamber; there were toilet facilities accessible directly from the chamber. The long time members had begun to realise that there were indeed some very big changes in the wind and although changes cost money, there were usually also ways for money to be made.

The break was not for very long and Augusta soon called upon the Minister to continue.

"Having talked to and listened to some of you during the break I believe that I should begin with an announcement.

"Harry Potter, the Lord Merlin, has donated _(there was some murmuring)_ yes donated free and clear with no strings, five hundred million galleons." There was uproar, when the two senior witches eventually quietened them, Amelia continued, "As he said to me, 'Voldemort and the death eaters ruined the magical world, so it is only fitting that some of their money is used to put it to rights again.'

"Also as the Lady Luna Ravenclaw said to me; 'If you employ someone who cannot do the job through some form of cronyism then the job they are employed to do, does not get done, if you employ everyone this way then the system stops working.' The Ministry are not the only ones in our world who are guilty of doing just this and they have all been doing it for many years; there is going to be a tremendous upheaval and all I can say is thank goodness for pure blood snobbery, in its own perverted way it has made everything a lot easier.

"For many years the lowest three grades in the Ministry have been disproportionately poorly paid because no pure blood witches or wizards have ever been employed at these levels; currently this is where most of the work gets done. The vast majority of staff employed in grades four to eight cannot do the job's they were employed to do; the majority of the capable workers are already known to me. The others will, if they wish, be reemployed in the three lowest grades, where work they are capable of doing can be found for them.

"As I said before, the competent people are all in grades one, two and three, they already actually do ninety five percent of the work, so very soon they will be moved into positions where they will be getting paid for the work they have been doing since they started working for the Ministry.

"Being perfectly honest, my first inclination was to sack everyone from the middle five grades, however there are a few competent people in there, as I said, we have lists and believe me when I tell you that there are going to be massive changes.

"Here is another piece of Lady Ravenclaw logic for you to digest, 'The problem with being an incompetent surrounded by other incompetents is that you never get the chance to realise just how incompetent you are.' Believe me within this current Ministry setup that makes perfect sense."

There was some murmuring but it was generally positive, this gave the cohort some hope and Amelia carried on, "Let us change tack slightly.

"Since last Friday I have had my eyes opened with regards to the muggle world, we have spent years being regaled with poppycock and fairy tales of how much worse the mundane world was compared to the magical world; in the main that is a load of bunkum.

"We should have realised that the regaling was being done by people who had no real idea of what was going on in the non magical world. The Malfoy mob sneaked about the muggle world in the dark, murdering people who weren't even aware that they were there or more to the point that they even existed. The cowards never learned about anything that happened there, if they had they would never have gone out wearing white masks and long black robes they stuck out like a sore thumb. If one group had ever been identified as the perpetrators, the others would have been targeted and wiped out, that could easily have spread to all of us.

"Both worlds have their good points and bad, but when you combine the best of both you can really have a good life, some of the things are so simple and some little things would make life so much easier. Mr. Weasley would you mind using this for a minute." The room was all eyes and ears when, after showing them the items, she handed him a reporters note pad and a retractable ball point pen, she then had to reassure him that he didn't need to dip the pen in ink; he could just start writing.

Amelia continued, "I was sitting on a beach in Barbados, drinking an ice cold fruit juice cocktail, I think that it was last Sunday, but it might of been Monday. I had just had my eyes opened several times, so I asked an elf for something to make some notes and he gave me something similar to what I just gave Mr Weasley to use.

"It is so much easier than parchment and a quill, so later I asked my hosts about the things I was using; one of those pen's will fill at least five of those note pads, the pens can be bought for as little as one hundred for a galleon and the pads for twenty or more for a galleon. +

"Thanks to a combination of Fudge, Dumbledore and Malfoy all wanting to make money from shares in companies or from others they own, all of those types of thing are banned in the Ministry and schools of the British wizarding world. By its very nature parchment is expensive to produce and the quantity of quills currently consumed by the British magical community results in a fair degree of cruelty to a large number of birds; this we would like to reduce.

"This bill will remove the prohibition against the use of muggle pens and paper for note taking, both at Hogwarts and at all Ministry facilities this will of course include St Mungo's Hospital, news reporters will be permitted to use them everywhere. Final reports will still have to be submitted on parchment and in ink, again the non magical world gave up using quills round about a hundred years ago. Something called a fountain pen is what they changed to and it gets filled with ink, so it does not have to be constantly dipped into it; personally I still haven't seen or used one, although I have been assured by several first generation magic users that they are considerably more efficient than quills. The bill leaves the option of using a fountain pen open and it will be up to the individual to decide whether or not they wish to try one, there is no reason to ban something just because it is different.

"Mr Weasley, what are your thoughts so far, on the ball point pen and the note pad?"

Percy was about to switch on his pomposity, when he realised that if he did, Luna would probably call him Weaslewobbler again and completely humiliate him in front of everybody, so he said, "They are both excellent for what they are to be used for and if I might be so bold I will undertake to obtain a fountain pen and use it to write the final report, this should give me a good basis for comment on those as well."

The proposition to allow the use of ball pens and notepads for note taking in the Ministry and at Hogwarts, along with allowing the use of fountain pens was put to the floor and approved unanimously.

Amelia started again, "There was a bill in process, to ban the use of telephones; that bill has been scrapped, there will be no unilateral ban on telephones; Lady Potter had me insert the word unilateral into my statement . . ."

A phone started ringing.

Hermione took her phone out of her pocket and answered it, "Hello?"

Harry put his phone to his ear and said, "It's only me and that is enough for a demonstration."

They both put their phones away and Hermione stood, "These are an extremely useful forms of communication, however there are places where their ringing would be annoying . . . such as here, in hospitals, libraries and such places."

As she sat the words, 'uppity mudblood,' came from the midst of a group of five who's families, although not supporters of Voldemort were none the less well known for their extreme pure blood views.

Nobody had moved, but all five shot straight up in the air and stuck to the ceiling.

"Who did that?" came from a somewhat terrified, squeaky voice across the room.

Hermione rose and as she did she put out her right hand and holding her staff the Wizengamot was treated to the sight of Queen Galadriel; the cohort thought that they were lucky, the members were only getting the tinkling bells. "It was I."

There was a bit of a scramble as those who had not known moved to their knees; imperiously Galadriel continued, "You may rise.

"Those who can see will realise that they are completely outmatched.

"The teaching of history at Hogwarts has been appalling for far too many years, however I entreat you to find out what I mean when I say remember Dol Guldur."

The five who had been stuck to the ceiling floated gently down to seats away from everyone else, most of those present thought that it was justifiable that they still looked terrified.

The elven Queen continued, "One of you used a word that I declare to be forbidden, its use at any time within the hearing of any other will result in the deduction of one thousand galleons from your Gringotts account. The money will be distributed as follows: one hundred galleons handling fee for the goblins; two hundred galleons directly to the Department of Magical Law Enforcement; two hundred galleons to Hogwarts funds to subsidise the teaching of non magical studies. The other five hundred galleons will go to Mother Alma's Magical Orphanage, there is no reason that children who have already lost their parents should be treated as second class citizens."

"So I declare . . . so it will be!" A bright light issued from the staff and travelled outwards through the walls.

She turned to the original perpetrators, "I have no wish to delve into your minds to determine which of you it was that actually uttered the despicable word, you are all in a position where you should all be setting a good example; you have each been fined the thousand galleons.

"Some of you have heard me say this before but it doesn't lose validity by being repeated. In your world I am the Lady Hermione Jane Galadriel Merlin Potter; however my parents are both non magical dentists, do you honestly believe the fact that they are not magical has any effect on my being chosen by higher magic to be who I am.

"Minister do you think that I should give them a nature versus nurture talk?"

Amelia thought for a few moments, "I believe that you should, your majesty."

She smiled, "Would the Lady Greengrass and the Lady Slytherin please stand for a moment." They did and Queen Galadriel continued whilst pointing, "Mother and daughter, both are beautiful women, Lady Slytherin takes after her mother nature, Lady Greengrass has assured me that she also takes after her mother but to retain her looks she has to take care of herself, nature and nurture, in its simplest form. _(The two sat back down.)_

"Voldemort; he was born and registered in Hogwarts as Tom Marvolo Riddle; his mother was Merrop Gaunt, the only daughter of Marvolo Gaunt; the family were the last magical blood heirs of Salazar Slytherin one of the founders of Hogwarts. Merrop Gaunt trapped Voldemort's muggle father with a love potion, his father was Tom Riddle the muggle son of the local wealthy land owner. Unsurprisingly his father left his mother as soon as the love potion wore off; at the time she was pregnant and she died shortly after childbirth, so the baby she had named 'Tom Marvolo Riddle' was placed into a muggle orphanage.

"By all accounts and we have no reason to doubt them, he was not a very pleasant child, however the Ministry had been recording some powerful accidental magic outburst from him. That was why, when he was eleven years old he was granted a scholarship and brought to Hogwarts to learn to control his magic and thereafter to become a wizard.

"Although, as I said, he was never a very nice person, he did not wake up one dismal Monday morning and think, 'I am going to be a Dark Lord called Voldemort and kill everyone who doesn't worship the ground I walk on'.

"As the last magical blood heir of Salazar Slytherin there were no options for the Hogwarts sorting hat, he had to be sorted into the house of his ancient ancestor. He was poor, he was an orphan, to those who cared about such things he was the worst kind of half blood, he was most probably persecuted, but he was also a powerful wizard.

"Probably at first it was for self protection, he learned some not too pleasant spells and some of the older pureblood bigots around him, would most likely have tried to keep him firmly in his place. However others of a similar disposition to his, noticed his power and in addition the fact that he was the last heir of Slytherin, so they started to collect around him.

"I am not trying to say that Tom Riddle would or could ever have been anything much nicer than quite a nasty person which nature started him out as, but it was, almost certainly, the nurturing of the pure blood bigots in Slytherin House that created Voldemort.

"Bigotry is an evil in and of itself, do not succumb to it, if you do you will likely find yourself facing me and you will not find it pleasant.

"I find it somewhat disturbing that Dumbledore was well aware of everything I have just told you and for some reason chose not to do anything about it; I wonder if he has a reasonable explanation for Zeus.

"The more astute amongst you will have realised that we are trying to usher in a new age for magical Britain, a more honest age, a more equal age, a more open age; take advantage of it and live within the laws and rules. If you do you all stand to have a good life, if you flout the rules or abuse the rights of any sentient being, irrespective of their being magical or not, the consequences of getting caught will be dire . . . they might well be terminal."

She sat back down and remained in her regal form.

The Royal Witch stood and said, "We will have a five minute recess."

**-x-**

Mandy leaned across and whispered, "Better lecture than the one you gave me and look at the five of them . . . they are terrified of what you might do to them; anyway what was Dol Guldur?"

The cohort could all hear her quiet reply and she smiled demurely, "It was a dark fortress, somewhat larger than Hogwarts, it was very solidly built and it was designed, as such things are, to be impregnable."

"What did you do to it?" Susan asked.

Still Looking totally innocent she replied, "It was an eyesore so I removed it from the face of the earth."

"I'm glad that she is on our side." All of the cohort agreed with Hannah's sincerely expressed sentiment.

It was not very long before the Queen Galadriel reverted to the Lady Merlin.

**-x-**

It was only a few minutes before Augusta called them all back to their places and said, "I personally agree totally with the sentiments expressed by Queen Galadriel, it is not intended that we lose all of our meaningful traditions, however some of them are outdated and in this day and age are considered by most civilised societies to be barbaric.

"The selling of daughters to advance family status, or for business advantage will be outlawed; betrothals are acceptable selling girls for prostitution is obscene. I will warn you now that all existing marriage contracts are as of now in abeyance, they going to be reviewed . . . and for any that are found to be some form of legalised prostitution the creators of said contract will answer to Queen Galadriel . . . may you rest in peace.

"If it is to the benefit of both sides any contract can be cancelled . . . do it before we have to force you to.

"I hand the floor back to the Minister of Magic."

"First; I agree one hundred percent with the Royal Witch, sort yourselves out quickly or we will do it for you."

_(Tonks, the new Director of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement, looked like she would be delighted to enforce this new directive.) _

"Back to where we were so bare with me please.

"One of the better informed death eaters, most probably Augustus Rookwood, who worked in the Department of Mysteries, discovered what a portal was and carried that information to Voldemort. The paranoid, late, largely unlamented Dark Lord didn't like the idea of them and subsequently told Malfoy to get them banned which, with the application of his magical gold lubricant, he did.

"If you are a dark lord and have a bunch of lunatic death eaters who you send around to people's houses inflicting terror, you don't want the occupants having a means of escape, especially one that your anti Apparation and anti Portkey wards do not affect.

"As I believe I mentioned earlier, I travelled from Switzerland to Barbados using a portal, some three or four thousand miles; it was as easy as walking through an open door and far less disconcerting than the first time I had to walk through that wall to catch the Hogwarts Express. Personally I can see no reason to retain the ban on the use, creation or importation of these devices does anyone have any questions?"

They were fishing for a particular response and going for a biggie, the sheep seemed to be reacting true to form, they wanted to take them by portal to Barbados, give them ten to fifteen minutes there and they would be like putty . . . if they could persuade them to come back.

There was some quiet discussion and Lord Falmouth stood, "We have no reason not to believe the Minister, but none of us have any knowledge of these devices, however, if it were to be possible, we would like the opportunity to experience this means of transportation ourselves, before voting."

Amelia looked at Harry and he stood and checked the time, "I assume that you have all read something about magical technology and things that appear to us to be magic; well I discovered last Sunday that I own most of the major magical technology players in the form of Potter Industries. At the urging of my mother, who had developed the basic power supply rune set, the company was started by my father just after they were married, with the investment of one and a half million galleons, it was a good investment. Voldemort, as has been suggested was adverse to magical technology, we believe that he was being fed information by both Pettigrew and Rookwood, so he had Malfoy organize a blanket ban everything Potter Industries was even thinking of producing.

"So now the Corporate Headquarters are in Geneva and the major manufacturing facilities are in Australia, Japan, Canada and Silicon Valley in the United states of America, just think of all of the lost jobs and the millions in lost tax revenue. With expanded intimidation by the death eaters, Voldemort managed to keep magical technology out of most of Europe, although he did not affect its development in any meaningful way.

"Although that might not be strictly true, we have paid a lot of attention to security, every device that could be a problem, knows magically, who is allowed to operate it and it will not work for anyone else. Portals provide transport anywhere there is another portal, if you try to force someone to transport you somewhere they have permission to go and you do not, you have a problem, they are designed to close down when the person who opens them passes through them. Trust is involved, only the person who opens the gateway actually knows where it leads, have I opened a door in my home, where you were trying to force me to send you, or does it open into a holding cell in the Ministry of Magic in Calcutta?

"I have in my pocket a device that has never been used, these devices are not and will never be on the market, anywhere in the world; it can only be used by a member of the Potter family and it can create a portal to anywhere there is already a fixed one or it has the memory to return to.

"I would like you all to think about that for a minute." The target members whispered together for a few minutes and then Harry continued.

"Right if I am going to activate this portable portal maker I need a unanimous vote in favour; so all those in favour."

They all voted.

Augusta said, "The vote is unanimous."

The cohort with the addition of Mandy and Neville moved down to the central floor; Harry said, "Where shall we go?"

About thirty voices replied, "Barbados."

He smiled and after saving their current location in his portable portal maker he created a portal to Barbados, then said, "Hermione, you and the brave Ladies Gryffindor go through first and one of you telephone Daphne to tell us that everything is all right, then we will send everyone else through and of course I will have to come last."

A voice asked, "My Lord, why do you have to go last?"

"Because when the person who opens the portal passes through it, the portal it will close down." From her tone of voice it was obvious that Luna had decided that thick didn't even begin to describe some people.

Hermione said, "If I make my own portal and then go through it, everyone will see it close down, the Ladies Gryffindor can come through yours." Smirking, she did and she did and it did and they did.

Luna's phone rang and she glared at Harry as she answered it, "This is the Wizengamot Snorkack hunting expedition, chief sexual predator speaking, can I help you?" If they were going to behave like idiots then she was going to have some fun treating them as they deserve.

There was some squeaking from the phone, to the cohort it sounded remarkably like laughter, she closed her phone and said, "There is early success and the Snorkacks have been sighted." With that she walked through the portal; those who did not know Luna looked confused, everyone else simply thought, 'well it's Luna'.

Augusta said, "Come on you lot, you too Mr Weasley." As she headed through the portal closely followed by everyone else.

On their arrival, the uninitiated Wizengamot members were divided between the people who knew something of what they were looking at; the Potter Industry people had obviously been here and quite a few things had been updated.

Tonks had dragged Harry over to the balcony and threatened him first with instant death, but being as she was a woman she told him that she was allowed to change her mind and then she told him that it would be slow painful death, if she wasn't invited back here soon to lay on the beach. Padma had been nearby and quickly told Tonks that she would always be welcome provided she dressed in a similar manner to all of the other girls; she then took Tonks to her bedroom and showed her the string bikinis with thong bottoms all of the girls wore. Tonks agreed that if all of the other girls were going to be wearing the string bikinis then she would as well, after all it was a private beach and there were never many males around, with all of the other girls being so attractive it was bound to divide anyone else's attention.

Padma was rolling on the floor after asking the young metamorphmagus what Luna had said on the phone that had made Hermione crack up and as far as she was concerned Hermione had missed Luna's punch line.

The pair heard someone calling from downstairs it was obviously time to return to what passed for work.

**-x-**

The cohort was surprised to realise that it was not even midday when they were settled back in the Wizengamot chamber, somebody could have forewarned them that morning sessions generally ran from nine until one, afternoon sittings were from one thirty until five thirty.

Unless there was a dire emergency; the chances of there being two sessions in one day were so remote as to be nonexistent; traditionally the membership had always avoided as much work as possible.

It was providence that Percy Weasley had been given a notepad and ball point pen as the next hour saw a whole raft of Voldemort, Malfoy, Dumbledore, Fudge inspired, needless restrictions lifted; a lot of people besides the cohort would soon be very happy.

The Patil twins and Luna were at the back talking quietly on the telephone to Australia, Canada and of course Luna was talking to Silicon Valley; Potter Industries companies were being kept informed of what was becoming Legal.

**-x-**

It was a couple of minutes before one o'clock when the session finally ended and generally speaking all of the cohort were reasonably happy with the outcome. Hardly any of the old guard were still serving and for a first application, the new broom had done a pretty good job of sweeping clean.

"Some dire warnings had been issued, but fundamentally they were to make people behave in a morally more responsible manner, nothing in the least drastic, just what really should already be good manners.

Hermione seemed to be having a silent argument with Galadriel, the upshot of this was that the staff created a mounting for itself above the dais of the Wizengamot leader and set herself in it.

Glancing between her and the staff Harry asked, "What was all of that about?"

"She knows our perception of right from wrong and can easily divine the difference between the good of the magical world and outright self interest. Also she knows that we do not want to be here all of the time but she thinks that things would soon slip back to the way they were if there wasn't a firm hand overseeing proceedings; so she has decided to stay and if necessary be the firm hand.

"We are to tell Myrddin that I am to have Gwenhwyfar's staff, if he will be kind enough to provide it for me; you and he can easily keep the family safe."

A slender black oak staff had appeared before her, it was intricately carved with Celtic runes and as she took it she felt that she was meeting an old friend. It was obvious to the cohort that Gwenhwyfar and Galadriel were communicating; Hermione smiled and said, "It will not matter where we are I will always be able to talk with Galadriel . . . I believe that that is a very good thing."

As the cohort came down to the main floor they were faced by five of the longer serving Wizengamot members; Amelia and Tonks both noticed this and approached. However the five weren't together and it appeared that they wanted to price or buy some of the things that they had seen in Barbados which had now been made legal.

Harry asked Daphne to go and get her laptop computer, so she activated her portal maker, Mandy had decided to go with her to collect the laptop, Daphne returned three minutes later without Mandy.

Neville panicked, "Where's Mandy?"

Daphne smirked, "She is being held hostage . . . _(Daphne had had a good day and she was feeling a bit mischievous, so this wasn't designed to help Neville stop panicking,) . . ._ by Lauren and Emily, the four of them were wanting a reading lesson, they seem to think that it is imperative that they learn to read the titles and the synopsis of the films.

"Ben was complaining that the others kept watching girlie films, out of the goodness of my heart I decided to let someone else explain to him that maybe it was because they were all girls, his elf said that he had spent most of his time playing with his games machine.

"Lauren told me that some of the films were for little children and you could almost taste the emphasis on the word 'little' as if it was something really disgusting; three years old less than three foot tall and more grown up than most people in my year in Slytherin. By the way, Mandy wasn't trying to get away, she went off quite willingly with the girls to read the titles and the blurb for the films for them, Lauren was on about watching Star Wars again and telling Mandy about it, she seemed to want to watch it with her.

"It also seems like the Aussies have been in; they have set up the house portal and delivered some more generic wands and five children's computers, what are children's computers?"

The Ladies Hufflepuff and Gryffindor had decided that they would go and give a reading lesson to any of the orphans who wanted one and they disappeared through a portal Hannah had created, the portal closed behind her.

At the mention of the Australians having set up their portal, which Hermione had been going to set up with him, Harry thought that his life expectancy was decreasing rapidly, so he said, "We are in the middle of the Wizengamot meeting chamber, we should really go somewhere else to conduct our business, where do you think is best darling?" Quite deliberately directing the term of endearment and the question at the first amongst equals.

It was the word 'darling' and those eyes directed at her, that was her instant undoing, she hadn't heard him use a term of endearment to any of the other wives, so with her mind floating away in dreamland, she gave him a huge smile and then pulled herself together and said, "I should think that the Geneva meeting room would be as good as anywhere."

Tracey created their gateway to the Swiss chalet and a whole bunch of them passed through it, she obviously came last; Hermione, Daphne and Luna were immediately on their phones to respectively Canada, Australia and Silicon Valley. More people started arriving and it looked like they had brought a fair proportion of the contents of their warehouses with them.

Harry grinned and winked at Hermione and Daphne as he said, "Ok Neville, you said that you wanted to run the UK corporate office for Potter Industries, so now is the time that you start learning; we will find an office block for you in Diagon Alley, I should think that it would be a good idea if the various franchise holders had an office in the same building; especially at first." Neville had turned slightly green and was looking extremely worried.

Jill had come with the Aussies and after greeting them, with a smirk she said to Neville, "No worries Bruce, we'll soon have you set up fair dinkum."

Sam came up behind her and swiped her on the arm, "Behave yourself, as punishment you can spend the next six months in England helping him."

Jill's eyes lit up, "If I am very cheeky to Harry will you sentence me to six months under him as well? Please? Pretty please?" She received another swipe from Sam and twin glares from Daphne and Hermione, three seconds later all four females burst out laughing.

Neville mumbled, "I'll never understand women." At least four male voices commiserated with, 'Join the club.'

A whole load of stuff was coming through the portal and Sam explained that it was to help refurbish whichever building they decided on also to set up Neville's offices in Diagon Alley. So if Harry would give the go ahead they would get on with the renovations; of course Harry asked what it was he was being asked to give the go ahead for?

Sitting Neville at the table Sam and Joe sat either side of him, the pair had put their laptops on the table in front of him; Hermione, Daphne and Harry were stood behind them, looking over their shoulders.

Now being very serious Jill started, "Harry, I noticed that your property manager is absent, however I have it on good authority that she is giving reading lessons to some delightful young children so I will forgive her this time and do a little bit of her job for her.

"You own this five storied building in the middle of Diagon Alley, the top two floors are the offices of something called 'the Quibbler', the first three floors are empty." The two women were using their laptops to show pictures of the building and also some of what it would look like after renovation.

At the mention of 'the Quibbler' Luna had come over to watch and listen.

Jill continued, "We would want to gut the lower three floors to renovate them; really we want to put in a lift as well; it shouldn't take very long; but we need your permission to use the building and whoever's in charge of 'the Quibbler' to get a time to put in the lift."

Luna asked, "How long will it take to put the lift in?"

Wondering why it was Luna as opposed to Harry asking, Jill answered, "It is not like a lift in a muggle building, we would need no more than six hours."

Harry nodded to her and Luna said, "When you want to do the lift phone me, a little warning will be appreciated." Jill and Sam were looking a bit dubiously at the somewhat strange blond so she continued, "Daddy owns 'the Quibbler' and he has gone on an expedition to Patagonia, before he left he told everyone that I'm in charge."

Sam still looked a little worried, "Won't he complain when he comes back?"

Luna gave one of her crazy smiles, "He might, but if he does I will just tell him that while he was away I married Harry, it will distract him, he doesn't even know that I know Harry and I'm sure that he would like to meet him." She wandered back over to the Silicon Valley people who were talking to Daphne's parents; the two women were looking somewhat gobsmacked.

Hermione smiled, "Don't worry, you do what you have to do, Luna will take care of her father and all of us will take care of Luna, most especially Lauren, mummy Lulu is very special to all of us and Lauren knows it."

Shaking her head Sam called, "Burt, all systems are go for Diagon Alley."

Burt put his thumb up to her and spoke for half a minute on his phone; he opened a portal and Luna asked him something, she disappeared through the portal in front of him.

Twenty minutes later Luna was back and she arrived through the regular portal; she came over to the table and said, "They already have the regular portal working and the Quibbler people weren't too busy so I sent the lot of them home until tomorrow morning, the lift and stairs will be done by then.

"Actually there was quite a crowd gathering in the Alley to watch what Bert and his crew are doing, so he put a sign for Potter Industries European Headquarters on the outside of the building. He's also brought someone from Canada to explain to the crowd what's going on and to answer questions, I think that he said that his name was Chuck, anyway he's very good . . . someone said that his name was a nickname instead of his real name, but who would name a child Throw?" Not really expecting an answer she wandered back over to the Silicon Valley crowd again.

Neville saw his grandmother leave with one of Bert's people and he said, "I wonder where my Gran is going?"

Jill said, "That's Stan, he will probably fit a portal wherever you live, you will need it for work; I will help run the office for you, certainly at first but do you have someone lined up as a personal assistant? I hear that you are betrothed, do you think that your betrothed would like to do it?

"It is usual that there are four franchise holders in each country and the requirements are set out already, we have been doing this for over fifteen years and we have a fairly accurate idea of what is needed. It is good that wizards world wide use galleons, so the retail price for everything is already laid down as are the rates of commission for you and the franchise holder. The installation is mainly magical and the cost is also known; there is money to be made and jobs for a lot of people, but it won't be a free for all.

"There is a huge advertisement come article, in tomorrow's Daily Prophet and several of the mainland European papers as well; it will detail what we do, what we sell and how much it costs including, where appropriate, installation. It will include the fact that we require franchise holders and a general idea of what the franchise holder will have to provide; the rates of commission paid to the franchise holders will not be discussed in the news paper. We included the European papers so that the witches and wizards from France, Germany, Spain etc., know that the British have repealed a shed load of Laws and are moving forwards to join the rest of the world."

Harry interrupted, "I shall leave you to it Neville." Neville instead of looking slightly confused, now looked terrified.

You would have believed that they had been rehearsing it, the four cohort ladies asked in unison, "Just where do you think that you are going?"

He looked innocent, "I have done my bit in the Wizengamot and nothing that is happening here is really anything to do with me, the next appointment I have outside the immediate family, is to go with Hermione to see her parents. However I have currently allocated myself the task of collecting as many of the cohort as want to come, along with four orphans who haven't seen us all day, add in some elves plus anyone else who is free and I am going to the beach in Barbados."

Jill bleated, "I want to come to the beach."

Amelia had the rats, she wanted to go to the beach too and she, Tonks and the elder Greengrass' had to return to the Ministry, they had a lot of work to do.

Luna, Tracey and Daphne were smiling whilst Hermione smirked, "As much as I hate to say this but he's right, the Olympian goddesses ordered him to be happy and so he is going to do what makes him happy. Sam, Jill when you have driven as much into Neville's head as he can take for the day, phone us and we will bring you to the beach, Mandy will no doubt come to the beach with us."

Jill's smile lit up the room, but Sam moaned, "I have a husband at home that I will have to get back to but obviously Jill will be joining you.

"Provisionally Mandy will be his P.A. So she should have a phone, you lot can teach her how to use it." Tracey was the nearest to her so she handed her a phone for Mandy, before saying goodbye as the cohort disappeared through the portal.

She enclosed the three of them in a security bubble and started, "Right Neville, let's first talk about money . . ."

**-x-**

On their return to the Pottery Zen, Harry's elf, handed him a letter from Gringotts, it was marked 'URGENT' so Harry opened it:

_**An Urgent Personal Message from the Chief of the Goblin Nation.**_

_Lord Merlin,_

_There is a young Lady currently sitting in my office and she has convinced me that she owes you a life debt from the second task of the ill conceived Tri Wizard Tournament. _

_The young Lady is a Veela _

_As both she and I are aware of the insularity within the wizarding world; this is mainly through the pure blood bigotry and arrogance, so you will have very little knowledge of either the Veela physiology or their customs. _

_In order to preserve her life it is imperative that, at least, both you and 'the first amongst equals', meet with her as soon as possible. _

_Regards,_

_Goldfist_

He passed the letter to Hermione and after she had read it she looked thoughtful and started somewhere way out left field, "Please think before you say anything.

"I think that we all agree that prime numbers are good magic, so eleven would be better than nine; the cohort currently stands at nine and Jill, the Australian secretary, has asked me if you would consider adding her to our number. We don't really know her that well and I have not, as yet, answered her, after all we all seem to like her well enough but it is ultimately your decision as to whether we even consider her.

"To the cohort ten is no better than nine so I was still debating the matter.

"Now this letter is basically offering you Gabrielle Delacour and Goldfist seems to think that it is a good idea; we have both found that he is someone whose opinion should be taken seriously. He also intimates that there is some pretty serious or vital information about the Veela, as a race that we through no fault of our own, are missing and . . ."

Harry interrupted, "We need to go and get dressed to go to see Goldfist; at the moment we don't have enough information, we can bring Gabrielle back here and get a much better idea of just what this is all about."

She was trying to give him the same look Professor McGonagall used when she was interrupted but it didn't work on him; Daphne decided that she should go with them and the three went to their rooms to change into clothes more suitable for the Bank.

Before he started to get changed he rounded up everybody in the house and sent everyone who wanted to go, off to the beach house in Barbados; this only left the half dozen elves who's turn it was to look after the house.

**-x-**

Harry discovered that there was a 'Potter Industries European H. Q.' tag now available on their household Portal and this is what they used to get to Diagon Alley, the office portal was just inside the door to the Alley and it was luck that only Bert saw them as they passed through.

The crowd watching the work seemed to have thinned considerably from that described by Luna and the trio managed to pass through it before the crowd realised precisely who they were. By the time the crowd started to give chase the trio were entering Gringotts which was only about fifty yards, or so, from the portal.

Boisterous crowds do not enter the world of the goblins if they know what is good for them and apparently this one did; they waited at the bottom of the white marble steps leading up to the silver doors.

Once inside the bank the trio were lead directly to the Chief's office.

When greetings had been exchanged the trio looked at Gabrielle, who was sitting nervously in front of the goblin leader's desk; for her part the young Vela stood and gave a deep curtsey to the trio; Gabrielle was Veela, she was undeniably beautiful.

Goldfist completed the introductions, then he stood and said, "The Goblin nation has given oath to the Veela nation that the Lady Gabrielle will be kept safe until such times as you either accept or deny her requirement." He sat back down.

Thanks to the vast amount of information afforded him by his Merlin ring Harry understood what was happening he bowed to the goblin leader and replied, "I the Lord Merlin, on behalf of my cohort give oath that the Lady Gabrielle will be kept safe until such times as she is either granted admittance into the cohort, or she is denied the same and returned to the care of our Goblin friends."

Goldfist stood and bowed to Harry then turning to Gabrielle he said, "Young Lady, you have just become the safest person on the planet."

Daphne asked, "What is the panic?"

Gabrielle came and knelt in front of Harry, there was no sign of her Veela power, she said, "We have only just discovered that when you saved me from Hogwarts Lake, the life debt bound my soul to you; this has no effect on you, however it is life or death to me.

"I have just had my tenth birthday; to a Veela this is like a sixteenth birthday to a British girl, this is when we may first have sex and as I just said I have just passed that landmark date." Her smile was enormous.

"Veela only look like human girls and in a lot of ways we are pretty much the same, however in other ways we are quite different, especially sex; quite simply, if the bond is not completed before my twelfth birthday I will die. I have come now so that you might all get to know me and obviously I intend to encourage you to save my life; however because I have voluntarily placed myself in this position, unless it is for defence, I am unable to use my Veela power when I am near you.

"It is known that your honour defines you and because of that I have been permitted to bring three books written by the Veela about the Veela, we ask that you do not copy them or promulgate this information, they should be returned to Veeland within a week."

A short time later their business having been completed it was time for them to leave the bank, however as with many things in Harry's life it wasn't that simple, there was now a huge crowd outside of Gringotts.

The three explained to Goldfist that they could easily leave, but a fair few of the crowd had seen the trio enter the bank and if they didn't see them leave, dispersing the crowd could become a problem for the bank.

Goldfist had told them that he would send some goblins out to explain to the crowd that the trio had left using a goblin made portkey because they disliked being mobbed by a lot of people.

When they had said goodbye to the goblin leader a group of guards led them to the portkey point where Harry created a portal and the four of them went to Barbados.

**-x-**

A small blond missile was immediately heading for Harry, however Lauren slowed down when she saw Gabrielle and she went to Harry and held her arms up, he picked her up and she said, "She be very pretty."

Harry cuddled her tightly then said, "Her name is Gabrielle and she will be staying with us for a bit and I think that if you ask her she would like to be your friend."

He carried Lauren towards Gabrielle, smiling the Veela held her arms out to her; the little girl looked uncertainly at Harry who gave a slight nod and she moved tentatively into the young Veela's arms.

The pair spent about half a minute staring into each other's eyes and then Gabrielle drew Lauren to her and whispered something into her ear causing the little girl to smile, wriggle down to the ground and drag the Veela off to play.

Daphne appeared to be a bit nervous, "Well that bit seems to be working out, but what about Gabrielle and us?"

Harry wasn't sounding too happy either, however it was for a totally different reason, "She's only ten and I have to take her virginity before she is twelve . . . that sounds all wrong."

Of course Hermione was trying to be more practical; she understood Daphne being nervous about just how good looking Gabrielle was, but it didn't seem to affect Harry, so she wouldn't let it affect her. She totally sympathised with Harry's thoughts of the young Veela's age; so she said, "We need to read these books she has given us, it is no good us making decisions without first reviewing all of the information we have available . . . Dumbledore withheld information and we made mistakes, it would be irresponsible of us to do the same thing to ourselves."

Both Daphne and Harry already realised why she was the first amongst equals and all three settled down to read.

**-x-**

It was nearly three hours later and they had just finished reading one book each when Neville called to say that Jill and he were ready to come to the beach; Parvati and Tracey volunteered to go and collect them.

Ten minutes later Neville wandered onto the beach wearing some of the clothes he had bought a few days before, he flopped onto one of the chairs by the table, whereupon Mandy sat on his lap and proceeded to attempt to snog him senseless, luckily for them all she failed in her task.

"Where are the others?" she asked.

Neville grinned, "They took Jill shopping, I was going to say that they would be here soon, but one of them is Parvati . . . so who knows."

A bunch of them sat at the table with the couple and Harry asked, "So how did you get on with Sam and Jill?"

Still smiling Neville Looked at Mandy and said, "I don't think that either of us will be going back to Hogwarts; Harry has offered us the chance to run Potter Industries Europe and it is too good an opportunity to miss, but it needs to be done like now; so will you be my personal assistant?"

Mandy gave him a look, "Your Gran will go loopy and my parents will go bananas; right I will say what they are going to say to us: you need your NEWTS to get a good job, why leave now? Actually I don't really think that my parents will be that polite but the fundamental question will be the same."

Quietly he answered, "We made way over ten thousand galleons commission in two hours this afternoon, this was from the first portal orders for the Ministry, it won't be that much every day, but once their reorganisation is complete the Ministry is going to fund Portals for all of their senior staff.

"We are going to make millions.

"Through the various national wizarding newspapers in the other European countries, Potter Industries is going to start a campaign to stir up the public into getting the various European Ministries to repeal the restrictions on our products; loads more money.

"That's enough, I'm going to play in the water." Having stated his intentions, Neville stood, lifting Mandy in his arms and carrying her playfully kicking and screaming, he charged straight into the sea. Unfortunately for Neville, below a certain age, young people are unable to discern the difference between 'kicking and screaming' and 'playfully kicking and screaming'; he was attacked and dunked by four orphans and a young Veela who were defending their auntie Mandy.

Everyone else, Mandy included, burst out laughing.

Jill, Parvati and Daphne had arrived just as Neville had charged off with Mandy, however as soon as they all had recovered a little from their laughter, the whole bunch of them charged into the sea and joined in with the water fight; Gabrielle was having a wonderful time.

**-x-**

It had taken three quarters of an hour but now the orphans were heading off for another reading lesson with the Ladies Hufflepuff, Parvati and Tracey; the others all spread themselves under the umbrellas shading the table.

Mandy smiled, "I had been kind of forewarned, I knew that there had to be something cooking when Tracey gave me a mobile phone and they all taught me to use it; so seriously, what about our parents?"

Neville for his part looked thoughtful, "I think that my Gran knows already; anyway we are both of age and if you are serious and your parents start making a fuss, we can just bond like this lot and wait for them to come around."

Mandy was looking at him with a mixture of love amazement and lust, "I think that I might just have to keep you Mr Longbottom . . . permanently."

He smiled at her shyly, "I'd like to keep you as well."

Looking to the others he continued, "Apparently what happened today has never happened before, that is the laws being changed and everybody knowing about it and wanting to get hold of our products immediately. So the three main factories are going to send us a load of people to cover the installation of all of the products; whilst we, that is you, Jill and I sort out the British franchise holders and apparently the Diagon Alley offices will be completely finished by about noon tomorrow."

Jill yawned, "I'm going home to bed, I'll come back tomorrow when I wake up, where should I come?"

Hermione suggested, "Why don't you spend the night in the Pottery, Neville can phone you with where and when in the morning?"

Jill obviously wanted to accept, however she said, "I wouldn't want to impose."

Harry smiled at her, "There are over one hundred and twenty spare bedroom suites and usually about thirty house elves looking for something to do; so I don't think that, however hard you try, you will be much of an imposition."

Daphne and Hermione decided to accompany Jill back to the Pottery to help get her settled.

Then they decided that they should also take Gabrielle with them, however when they went to collect her the four orphans wanted to come as well and it resulted in everyone returning to the Pottery.

**-x-**

_**Epilogue. **_

A week later both Jill and Gabrielle had been admitted to the cohort.

Jill continued to help Neville and Mandy with the company office in Diagon Alley; although the time she spent there was becoming less and less, however Gabrielle seemed to spend most of the day reverted to being five years old and playing with the orphans.

During a friendly discussion one evening it was determined that the young Veela had, previously, never been allowed to play and she was making up for it now. Apart from Jill, who had grown up in Australia, all of the other members of the cohort realised that the same thing applied to them; the girls were all enjoying their new found freedom, Harry insisted that he just liked watching their bits bounce.

The cohort had visited the house in Goa the day after their exploits in the Wizengamot; it was very much an Indian equivalent of the house in Barbados, although the beach was much longer.

All of the cohort loved India, especially Goa and it was just as well that they all had telephones because with the aid of portals it was impossible to know just where anybody was at any given time. It quite quickly reached the point where the family had all but withdrawn from the wizarding world and had started using the whole world as their playground.

Hermione's parents had decided not to become magical, it would totally change what was for them a very comfortable life, they each had a Potter phone and also one of their laptop computers, so daughter and parents could always keep in touch; portals would soon bring them together.

Harry had contracted the Goblins to build him a house with one hundred and fifty bedroom suits on his unplotable Caribbean island, this became, as had been intended, the Potters main residence. He gave away most of the penthouses, keeping only those that were located in parts of the world they might wish to visit sometime in the future, Parvati forced him into her bed for four hours by way of compensation.

None of the cohort went back to study in Hogwarts which in most ways pleased the Headmistress, the thought of a gang of eleven Marauders had caused her several sleepless nights, however she was not looking forward to the eventual arrival of a certain four orphans.

By Halloween four of the girls were pregnant, ergo it would be true to say that the contract was fulfilled and Harry was Happy.

_**That's all Folks!**_

_**The End **_

_**Fin**_

_**Etc.,**_


End file.
